It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes! No one is so accursed by fate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds, as if with unseen wings, 1841. 10 20 30 'Where hast thou stayed so long?' 1841. ENDYMION THE rising moon has hid the stars; Lie on the landscape green, 1 In Scandinavia, this is the customary salutation when drinking a health. I have slightly changed the orthography of the word [skaal] in order to preserve the correct pronunciation. (LONGFELLOW.) THE RAINY DAY THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary; But at every gust the dead leaves fall, My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; Past, THE shades of night were falling fast, 2 Excelsior' was inspired by the motto on the shield of New York State, which Longfellow happened to see copied as the heading of a newspaper. The significance of the poem is well expressed by Poe at the end of his review of Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems, in a passage beginning, 'It depicts the earnest upward impulse of the soul,-an impulse not to be subdued even in death.' Longfellow himself has described his purpose fully in a letter to C. K. Tuckerman : 'I have had the pleasure of receiving your note in regard to the poem "Excelsior," and very willingly give you my intention in writing it. This was no more than to display, in a series of pictures, the life of a man of genius, resisting all temptations, laying aside all fears, heedless of all warnings, and pressing right on to accomplish his purpose. His motto is Excelsior, higher." He passes through the Alpine village through the rough, cold paths of the world-where the peasants cannot understand him, and where the watchword is an "unknown tongue." He disregards the happiness of domestic peace and sees the glaciers-his fate before him. He disregards the warning of the old man's wisdom and the fascinations of woman's love. He answers to all," Higher yet!" The monks of St. Bernard are the representatives of religious forms and ceremonies, and with their oft-repeated prayer mingles the sound of his voice, telling them there is something higher than forms and ceremonies. Filled with these aspirations, he perishes; without having reached the A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior! His brow was sad; his eye beneath, In happy homes he saw the light Of household fires gleam warm and bright; Try not the Pass!' the old man said; 'Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!' And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior! 'Oh stay,' the maiden said, and rest 'Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! At break of day, as heavenward A voice cried through the startled air, A traveller, by the faithful hound, There in the twilight cold and gray, perfection he longed for; and the voice heard in the air is the promise of immortality and progress ever upward.' The manuscript of the poem, containing many alterations, is kept on exhibition in the Art Room of the Harvard University Library It is written on the back of a letter from Charles Sumner, and dated September 28, 1841. Half-past three o'clock, morning.' See H. E. Scudder's Men and Letters, pp. 137-146: The Shaping of Excelsior.' HALF of my life is gone, and I have let The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The aspiration of my youth, to build But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, A city in the twilight dim and vast, With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights, And hear above me on the autumnal blast The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights. 1842. THE SLAVE'S DREAM 2 BESIDE the ungathered rice he lay, His breast was bare, his matted hair Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, 1842. Wide through the landscape of his dreams The lordly Niger flowed; 1 Longfellow's health was so seriously impaired by his close work as teacher, lecturer, editor, and author, that in the spring of 1842 he took six months' leave of absence, and spent most of the time at the 'watercure' of Marienberg. While there he wrote no verse except this sonnet, dated August 25, just before leaving for England on his way home. It was first published in the Life. 2 Longfellow wrote all his Poems on Slavery during his voyage home in 1842, and they were published in a small volume of thirty-one pages in December of that year. The intense sincerity of Whittier's poems against slavery is lacking in Longfellow's sentimental and 'romantic' treatment of the subject; but it meant much for him to take the side which he did, so early as 1842. See the Life, vol. i, pp. 443-453, vol. ii, pp. 7-10, 20-21; and T. W. Higginson's Life of Longfellow, pp. 163-167. Compare the notes on Lowell's Stanzas on Freedom' and on Whittier's 'To William Lloyd Garrison.' 1 Longfellow was married to Frances Appleton in 1843. On their wedding journey Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow visited the Arsenal at Springfield, in company with Charles Sumner. This visit, and the origin of the poem, are described in the Life: While Mr. Sumner was endeavoring to impress upon the attendant that the money expended upon these weapons of war would have been much better spent upon a great library, Mrs. Longfellow pleased her husband by remarking how like an organ looked the ranged and shining gun-barrels which covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and suggesting what mournful music Death would bring from them."We grew quite warlike against war," she wrote, "and I urged H. to write a peace poem." From this hint came "The Arsenal at Springfield," written some months later.' See also Lowell's Letters, vol. i, p. 140, letter of Aug. 13, 1845. (Vol. ii. pp. 2, 3.) |