The Poetical Works of H.W. Longfellow

The Latin hymns, which I understand
Quite as well, I think, as the rest.
And at night such lodging in barns and sheds,
Such a hurly-burly in country inns,
Such a clatter of tongues in empty inns!
Such a helter-skelter of prayers and sins!
Of all the contrivances of the time
For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime,
There is none so pleasing to me and mine
As a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine!

Prince Henry. If from the outward man we judge the inner,

And cleanliness is godliness, I fear

A hopeless reprobate, a hardened sinner,
Must be that Carmelite now passing near.

Lucifer. There is my German Prince again,
Thus far on his journey to Salern,

And the lovesick girl, whose heated brain
Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain;
But it's a long road that has no turn!
Let them quietly hold their way,

I have also a part in the play.

But, first, I must act to my heart's content
This mummery and this merriment,
And drive this motley flock of sheep
Into the fold, where drink and sleep
The jolly old friars of Benevent.

Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh
To see these beggars hobble along,
Lamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff,
Chanting their wonderful piff and paff,

And, to make up for not understanding the song,
Singing it fiercely, and wild, and strong!
Were it not for my magic garters and staff,
And the goblets of goodly wine I quaff,
And the mischief I make in the idle throng,
I should not continue the business long.

You are a German."

Friar Cuthbert.

I cannot gainsay you. But by what instinct, or what secret sign, Meeting me here, do you straightway divine That northward of the Alps my country lies? Prince Henry, Your accent, like St. Peter's, would betray you,

Did not your yellow beard and your blue eyes.
Moreover, we have seen your face before,
And heard you preach at the Cathedral door
On Easter Sunday, in the Strasburg square.
We were among the crowd that gathered there,
And saw you play the Rabbi with great skill,
As if, by leaning o'er so many years

To walk with little children, your own will
Had caught a childish attitude from theirs,
A kind of stooping in its form and gait,
And could no longer stand erect and straight.
Whence come you now?
Friar Cuthbert.

From the old monastery

sant.

The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,
Pay homage to her as one ever present!
And even as children, who have much offended
A too-indulgent father, in great shame
Penitent, and yet not daring unattended
To go into his presence, at the gate
Speak with their sister, and confiding wait,
Till she goes in before and intercedes;
So men, repenting of their evil deeds,
And yet not venturing rashly to draw near
With their requests an angry father's ear,
Offer to her their prayers and their confession,
And she for them in heaven makes intercession.
And if our faith had given us nothing more
Than this example of all womanhood,
So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good,
So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure,
This were enough to prove it higher and truer
Than all the creeds the world had known be-
fore.

Pilgrims chanting afar off.
Urbs cœlestis, urbs beata,
Supra petram collocata,
Urbs in portu satis tuto
De longinquo te saluto,
Te saluto, te suspiro,
Te affecto, te requiro!

The Inn at Genoa. A terrace overlooking the sea.
Night.

Prince Henry. It is the sea, it is the sea
In all its vague immensity,
Fading and darkening in the distance!
Silent, majestical, and slow.

The white ships haunt it to and fro,
With all their ghostly sails unfurled,
As phantoms from another world.
Haunt the dim confines of existence!
But ah! how few can comprehend
Their signals, or to what good end
From land to land they come and go!
Upon a sea more vast and dark
The spirits of the dead embark,
All voyaging to unknown coasts.
We wave our farewells from the shore,
And they depart, and come no more,
Or come as phantoms and as ghosts."
Above the darksome sea of death
Looms the great life that is to be,
A land of cloud and mystery,
A dim mirage, with shapes of men
Long dead, and passed beyond our ken.
Awe-struck we gaze, and hold our breath
Till the fair pageant vanisheth,
Leaving us in perplexity,

And doubtful whether it has been
A vision of the world unseen,
Or a bright image of our own
Against the sky in vapours thrown.

Lucifer (singing from the sea). Thou didst not make it, thou canst not mend it,

But thou hast the power to end it!
The sea is silent, the sea is discreet,
Deep it lies at thy very feet;

There is no confessor like unto Death!
Thou canst not see him, but he is near:

Thou needest not whisper above thy breath,
And he will hear;

He will answer the questions,

The vague surmises and suggestions,

That fill thy soul with doubt and fear!

Prince Henry. The fisherman, who lies afloat,
With shadowy sail, in yonder boat,
Is singing softly to the Night!
But do I comprehend aright

The meaning of the words he sung
So sweetly in his native tongue?
Ah, yes! the sea is still and deep.
All things within its bosom sleep!
A single step, and all is o'er;

A plunge, a bubble, and no more;
And thou, dear Elsie, wilt be free
From martyrdom and agony.

Prince Henry. Lo! while we gaze, it breaks and falls

In shapeless masses, like the walls
Of a burnt city. Broad and red

The fires of the descending sun

Glare through the windows, and o'erhead,
Athwart the vapours, dense and dun,
Long shafts of silvery light arise,

Like rafters that support the skies!

Elsie. See! from its summit the lurid levin Flashes downward without warning,

As Lucifer, son of the inorning,

Fell from the battlements of heaven!

Il Padrone. I must entreat you, friends, below!

The angry storm begins to blow,

For the weather changes with the moon.

All this morning, until noon,

We had baffling winds, and sudden flaws
Struck the sea with their cat's paws.

Only a little hour ago

I was whistling to Saint Antonio

For a capful of wind to fill our sail,

And instead of a breeze he has sent a gale.
Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars,

Elsie (coming from her chamber upon the terrace). With their glimmering lanterns all at play

The night is calm and cloudless,

And still as still can be,

And the stars come forth to listen

To the music of the sea.

They gather, and gather, and gather,
Until they crowd the sky,

And listen, in breathless silence,
To the solemn litany.
It begins in rocky caverns,
As a voice that chants alone
To the pedals of the organ
In monotonous undertone;

And anon from shelving beaches,
And shallow sands beyond,

In snow-white robes uprising
The ghostly choirs respond.
And sadly and unceasing

The mournful voice sings on,

And the snow-white choirs still answer
Christe eleison !

Prince Henry, Angel of God! thy finer sense perceives

Celestial and perpetual harmonies!
Thy purer soul, that trembles and believes,
Hears the archangel's trumpet in the breeze,
And where the forest rolls, or ocean heaves,
Cecilia's organ sounding in the seas,

And tongues of prophets speaking in the leaves.
But I hear discord only and despair,
And whispers as of demons in the air!

(At Sea.)

Il Padrone. The wind upon our quarter lies, And on before the freshening gale, That fills the snow-white lateen sail, Swiftly our light felucca flies. Around, the billows burst and foam; They lift her o'er the sunken rock, They beat her sides with many a shock, And then upon their flowing dome They poise her, like a weathercock! Between us and the western skies The hills of Corsica arise; Eastward, in yonder long, blue line, The summits of the Apennine,

And southward, and still far away,

Salerno, on its sunny bay.

You cannot see it, where it lies.

On the tops of the masts and the tips of the

day,

Cheerly, my hearties! yo heave ho!
Brail up the mainsail, and let her go
As the winds will and Saint Antonio!

Do you see that Livornese felucca,
That vessel to the windward yonder,
Running with her gunwale under?

I was looking when the wind o'ertook her.
She had all sail set, and the only wonder
Is, that at once the strength of the blast
Did not carry away her mast.

She is a galley of the Gran Duca,
That through the fear of the Algerines,
Convoys those lazy brigantines,
Laden with wine and oil from Lucca.
Now all is ready, high and low;
Blow, blow, good Saint Antonio!
Ha! that is the first dash of the rain,
With a sprinkle of spray above the rails,
Just enough to moisten our sails,
And make them ready for the strain.
See how she leaps, as the blasts o'ertake her,
And speeds away with a bone in her mouth!
Now keep her head toward the south,
And there is no danger of bank or breaker.
With the breeze behind us on we go;
Not too much, good Saint Antonio!

Against all disputants old and young.
Let us see if doctors or dialecticians

Will dare to dispute my definitions,

Or attack any one of my learned theses.
Here stand I; the end shall be as God pleases.

Prince Henry. Ah, would that never more mine I think I have proved, by profound researches,

eyes

Might see its towers by night or day!
Elsie. Behind us, dark and awfully,
There comes a cloud out of the sea,
That bears the form of a hunted deer,
With hide of brown, and hoofs of black,
And antlers laid upon its back,
And fleeing fast and wild with fear,
As if the hounds were on its track!

The errors of all those doctrines so vicious
Of the old Areopagite Dionysius,

That are making such terrible work in the

churches,

By Michael. the Stammerer sent from the East,
And done into Latin by that Scottish beast,
Erigena Johannes, who dares to maintain,
In the face of the truth, the error infernal,
That the universe is and must be eternal;

At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,
That nothing with God can be accidental;
Then asserting that God before the creation
Could not have existed, because it is plain
That, had he existed, he would have created;
Which is begging the question that should be
debated,

And moveth me less to anger than laughter.
All nature, he holds, is a respiration

Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter
Will inhale it into his bosom again,

So that nothing but God alone will remain.
And therein he contradicteth himself;
For he opens the wholo discussion by stating,
That God can only exist in creating."
That question I think I have laid on the shelf!
(lle goes out. Two Doctors come in disputing, and
followed by Pupils.)

Doctor Serafino. I, with the Doctor Seraphic,
maintain,

That a word which is only conceived in the brain
Is a type of eternal Generation;

The spoken word is the Incarnation.

And dissections of the bodies of swine,
As likest the human form divine.
Second Scholar. What are the books now most
in vogue?

Fisrt Scholar. Quite an extensive catalogue;
Mostly, however. books of our own;
As Gariopontus Passionarius,

And the writings of Matthew Platearius;
And a volume universally known

As the Regimen of the School of Salern,
For Robert of Normandy written in terse,
And very elegant Latin verse.

Each of these writings has its turn,
And when at length we have finished these,
Then comes the struggle for degrees,
With all the oldest and ablest critics;
The public thesis and disputation,
Question, and answer, and explanation
Of a passage out of Hippocrates,
Or Aristotle's Analytics.

There the triumphant Magister stands!
A book is solemnly placed in his hands,
On which he swears to follow the rule
And ancient forms of the good old school

Doctor Cherubino. What do I care for the Doctor To report if any confectionarius

Seraphic,

With all his wordy chaffer and traffic?

Doctor Serafino. You make but a paltry show of resistance;

Universals have no real existence!

Doctor Cherubino. Your words are but idle and empty chatter!

Ideas are eternally joined to matter!

Doctor Serafino. May the Lord have mercy on
your position!

You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs!
Doctor Cherubino. May he send your soul to
eternal perdition,

For your treatise on the Irregular Verbs!
(They rush out fighting. Two Scholars come in.)
First Scholar. Monte Cassino, then, is your
College.

What think you of ours here at Salern?
Second Scholar. To tell you the truth, I arrived
so lately.

I hardly yet have had time to discern.

So much, at least, I am bound to acknowledge
The air seems healthy, the buildings stately,
And on the whole I like it greatly.

First Scholar. Yes, the air is sweet: the Cala-
brian hills

Send us down puffs of mountain air;
And in summer time the sea-breeze fills
With its coolness cloister, and court, and square.
Then at every season of the year

There are crowds of guests and travellers here;
Pilgrims, and mendicant friars, and traders
From the Levant, with figs and wine,
And bands of wounded and sick Crusaders,
Coming back from Palestine.

Second Scholar. And what are the studies you
pursue?

What is the course you here go through?
First Scholar. The first three years of the
college course

Are given to Logic alone, as the source
Of all that is noble, and wise, and true.

Mingles his drugs with matters various,
And to visit his patients twice a-day,
And once in the night, if they live in town,
And if they are poor, to take no pay.
Having faithfully promised these,

His head is crowned with a laurel crown;
A kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand,
The MagisterArtium et Physices
Goes forth from the school like a lord of the
land.

And now, as we have the whole morning before

us,

Let ns go in, if you make no objection,
And listen awhile to a learned prelection
On Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorous.

(They go in. Enter LUCIFER as a Doctor)
Lucifer. This is the great School of Salern!
A land of wrangling and of quarrels,
Of brains that seethe, and hearts that burn,
Where every emulous scholar hears,
In every breath that comes to his ears,
The rustling of another's laurels!
The air of the place is called salubrious;
The neighbourhood of Vesuvius lends it'
An odour volcanic, that rather mends it,
And the buildings have an aspect lugubrious,
That inspires a feeling of awe and terror
Into the heart of the beholder,

And befits such an ancient homestead of error,
Where the old falsehoods moulder and smoulder,
And yearly by many hundred hands
Are carried away, in the zeal of youth,
And sown like tares in the field of truth,
To blossom and ripen in other lands.
What have we here, affixed to the gate?
The challenge of some scholastic wight,
who wishes to hold a public debate
On sundry questions wrong or right!
Ah, now this is my great delight!
For I have often observed of late
Shat such discussions end in a fight
Let us see what the learned wag maintains
With such a prodigal waste of brains.

(Reads)

Second Scholar. That seems rather strange, I "Whether angels in moving from place to

must confess,

In a Medical School; yet, nevertheless,
You doubtless have reasons for that.

First Scholar.

O, yes

For none but a clever dialectician

Can hope to become a great physician;
That has been settled long ago.

Logic makes an important part

Of the mystery of the healing art;

For without it how could you hope to show
That nobody knows so much as you know?
After this there are five years more,
Wholly devoted to medicine,

With lectures on chirurgical lore,

place

Pass through the intermediate space.
Whether God himself is the author of evil,
Or whether that is the work of the Devil.
When, where, and wherefore Lucifer fell,
And whether he now is chained in hell."
I think I can answer that question well!
So long as the boastful human mind
Consents in such mills as this to grind,
I sit very firmly upon my throne!
Of a truth it almost makes me laugh,
To see men leaving the golden grain
To gather in piles the pitiful chaff

That old Peter Lombard thrashed with his brain,

To have it caught up and tossed again
On the horus of the Dumb Ox of Cologne !
But my guests approach! There is in the air
A fragrance, like that of the Beautiful Garden-
Of Paradise, in the days that were!
An odour of innocence, and of prayer,
And of love, and faith that never fails,
Such as the fresh young heart exhales
Before it begins to wither and harden!
I cannot breathe such an atmosphere!
My soul is filled with a nameless fear,,
That, after all my trouble and pain,
After all my restless endeavour,
The youngest, fairest soul of the twain,
The most ethereal, most divine,

Will escape from my hands for ever and ever.
But the other is already mine!

Let him live to corrupt his race,
Breathing among them, with every breath,
Weakness, selfishness, and the base
And pusillanimons fear of death.
I know his nature, and I know
That of all who in my ministry
Wander the great earth to and fro,
And on my errands come and go,

The safest and subtlest are such as he.

Enter PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE, with
Attendants.

Prince Henry. Can you direct us to Friar An

gelo?

Prince Henry.

I forbid it!

Not one step farther. For I only meant
To put thus far thy courage to the proof.
It is enough. I, too, have courage to die,
For thou hast taught me!
Elsie.
O my Prince! remember
Your promises. Let me fulfil my errand.
You do not look on life and death as I do.
There are two angels that attend unseen
Each one of us, and in great books record
Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down
The good ones, after every action closes
His volume, and ascends with it to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,
And leaves a line of white across the page.

Now if my act be good, as I believe it,
It cannot be recalled. It is already
Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accom-
plished.

The rest is yours. Why wait vou? I am ready.
(To her Attendants.)
Weep not, my friends! rather rejoice with me?
I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone,
And you will have another friend in heaven.
Then start not at the creaking of the door.
Through which I pass. I see what lies beyond
(To Prince Henry:)

it.

And you, O Prince! bear back my benison
Unto my father's house, and all within it.
This morning in the church I prayed for them,
After confession, after absolution,

When my whole soul was white, I prayed for

them.

God will take care of them, they need me not.
And in your life let my remembrance linger,
As something not to trouble and disturb it
But to complete it, adding life to life.
And if at times beside the evening fire
You see my face among the other faces,
Let it not be regarded as a ghost

That haunts your house, but as a guest that loves you.

Nay, even as one of your own family,

Without whose presence there were something wanting.

I have do more to say. Let us go in.

Prince Henry. Friar Angelo! I charge you on

your life,

Believe not what she says, for she is mad,
And comes here not to die, but to be healed.
Elsie. Alas! Prince Henry!
Lucifer.
Come with me; this way.
(ELSIE goes in with LUCIFER, who thrusts
PRINCE HENRY back and closes the door.)
Prince Henry. Gone! and the light of all my
life gone with her!

A sudden darkness falls upon the world!
O, what a vile and abject thing am I.
That purchase length of days at such a cost!
Not by her death alone, but by the death
Of all that's good and true and noble in me!
All manhood, excellence, and self-respect,
All love, and faith, and hope, and heart are
dead!

All my divine nobility of nature
By this one act is forfeited for ever.
I m a prince in nothing but in name!

(To the Attendants.) Why did you let this horrible deed be done? Why did you not lay hold on her, and keep her

From self-destruction? Angelo! Murderer! (Struggles at the door, but cannot get in.) Elsie (within). Farewell, dear Prince! farewell!

Death never takes one alone, but two!
Whenever he enters in at a door,
Under roof of gold or roof of thatch,
He always leaves it upon the latch,
And comes again ere the year is o'er.
Never one of a household only!
Perhaps it is a mercy of God.
Lest the dead there under the sod,
In the land of strangers, should be lonely!
Ah me! I think I am lonelier here;
It is hard to go,-but harder to stay!
Were it not for the children, I should pray

That Death would take me within the year!
And Gottlieb !-he is at work all day,
In the sunny field, or the forest murk,
But I know that his thoughts are far away,
I know that his heart is not in his work!
And when he comes home to me at night,
He is not cheery, but sits and sighs,
And I see the great tears in his eyes,
And try to be cheerful for his sake.
Only the children's hearts are light,
Mine is weary, and ready to break.
God help us! I hope we have done right;
We thought we were acting for the best!

(Looking through the open door.)
Who is it coming under the trees?
A man, in the Prince's livery dressed!
He looks about him with doubtful face,
As if uncertain of the place,

he sees

He stops at the bee-hives-now
The garden gate; he is going past!
Can he be afraid of the bees?
No; he is coming in at last!

He fills my heart with strange alarm!

That is, the peasant she was before.

Ursula. Alas! I am simple and lowly bred, I am poor, distracted, and forlorn. And it is not well that you of the court Should mock me thus, and make a sport Of a joyless mother whose child is dead, For you, too. were of mother horn!

They call her the Lady Alicia now;
For the Prince Salerno made a vow
That Elsie only would he wed.

Ursula. Jesu Maria! what a change!
All seems to me so weird and strange!
Forester. I saw her standing on the deck,
Beneath an awning cool and shady;
Her cap of velvet could not hold
The tresses of her hair of gold,

That flowed and floated like the stream,
And fell in masses down her neck.

As fair and lovely did she seem
As in a story or a dream

Some beautiful and foreign lady.

And the Prince looked so grand and proud, And waved his hand thus to the crowd That gazed and shouted from the shore, All down the river, long and loud.

Ursula. We shall behold our child once more; She is not dead! She is not dead!

God, listening, must have overheard

The prayers, that, without sound or word,
Our hearts in secrecy have said!

O, bring me to her: for mine eyes
Are hungry to behold her face,
My very soul within me cries;
My very hands seem to caress her,
To see her, gaze at her, and bless her;
Dear Elsie, child of God and grace!
(Goes out towards the garden)
Forester. There goes the good woman out of
her head;

And Gottlieb's supper is waiting here;
A very capacious flagon of beer,
And a very portentous loaf of bread,

One would say his grief did not much oppress

him.

Here's to the health of the Prince, God bless him! (He drinks. Ha! it buzzes and stings like a hornet! And what a scene there, through the door! The forest behind and the garden before. And midway an old man of threescore, With a wife and children that caress him. Let me try still further to cheer and adorn it no With a merry echoing blast of my cornet! (Goes out, blowing his horn.)

Forester. Your daughter lives, and the Prince is well!

You will learn ere long how it all befell.
Her heart for a moment never failed;
But when they reached Salerno's gate,
The Prince's nobler self prevailed,

And he was healed, in his despair,

By the touch of St. Matthew's sacred bones;
Though I think the long ride in the open air,
That pilgrimage over stocks and tones,"
In the miracle must come in
a share!

Ursula. Virgin! who lovest the poor and lowly,

If the loud cry of a mother's heart
Can ever ascend to where thou art,
Into thy blessed hands and holy

Receive my prayer of praise and thanksgiving!
Let the hands that bore our Saviour bear it
Into the awful presence of God:
For thy feet with holiness are shod,
And if thou bearest it he will hear it,
Our child who was dead a gain is living!
Forester. I did not tell you she was dead;
If you thought so 'twas no fault of mine;
At this very moment, while I speak,
They are sailing homeward down the Rhine,
In a splendid barge, with golden prow,
And decked with banners white and red
As the colours on your daugnter's cheek.

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