THE THE BUILDERS HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW HE poet Longfellow was keenly alive to such of his every-day surroundings as presented symbolic instances of the higher life. The distinct ethical value of artistic architectural surroundings has long been admitted. Poets and artists are highly sensitive to such influences. The frequency with which Mr. Longfellow refers to buildings and their architectural features as symbols, causes us to feel that this line of thought was a favorite one with him. As the good poet looked from his study windows or wandered about the streets, he watched walls and buildings, in process of construction, grow steadily, almost silently, block by block, under the hands of the workmen. Jutting frieze, groined arch, carved pillar, each, while pleasing to the eye, performed its part in strengthening and supporting the rest of the structure. The workmen were in turn raised above the earth level, their field of vision was broadened, their atmosphere became purer, as the "stairways" became longer and loftier. The careless or dishonest workman was ever a danger and menace not alone to himself but to his fellow-laborers as well. Hence the stirring exhortation that follows. THE BUILDERS All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise, Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these; In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete, Build to-day, then, strong and sure, And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. ! THE BUILDERS 41 SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. What is the relation of man to man as stated in stanza 1? 2. What is the relative importance of each man's work according to stanza 2? 3. Does that doctrine apply to folly as well as to serious building? 4. What plea is made for poetry in the first two stanzas? 6. Where does the poet say didactically that living is a fine art? 7. How may a yawning gap be left between a to-day and a yesterday? 8. Where is there an exhortation to right physical life as well as to moral? 9. After reading "Ladder of St. Augustine," by the same author, find what the author had in mind in "broken stairways." 10. What then is Tennyson's thought in: "I hold it truth with him, who sings REFERENCES LONGFELLOW: Ladder of St. Augustine. HOLLAND: Gradatim. EMERSON: The Problem. The House. GOULD: A Name in the Sand. EBENEZER ELLIOTT: The Builders. PROCTER: One by One. BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE CHARLES WOLFE HE author, an Irish scholar and admirer of Sir John Moore, wrote this poem after reading an account of the fate of that heroic leader at the Battle of Corunna, Spain, between the English and the French, in 1809. Sir John Moore was the commander of the British troops. His Spanish allies having deserted him on hearing of the approach of Napoleon, he retreated to Corunna in a series of brilliant victories over his French pursuers, where he planned to embark for England and thus save his arms and army. He could no longer aid the Spanish cause when the Spaniards themselves had deserted their own flag. The French, fired with prospects of being joined by Napoleon, were emboldened to besiege the city and to attempt to capture the English troops before the transports arrived. After a two-day delay, the expected transports came, and the sick and wounded and the supplies, together with most of the artillery, had been placed on board guarded by fourteen thousand soldiers, when a French force of twenty thousand men disputed with them their right to embark. The French forces, reinforced by a powerful battery on the high ridge above, attempted to capture the embarking army. In the fierce trial of strength, the British gained a certain victory under the skilful direction of their heroic commander at the very moment when he was dashed to earth by a shot from the rock BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE 43 battery above. After several hours of severe torture, the gallant leader passed away and his devoted followers determined to bury him, though hurriedly, in the soil made sacred by his own blood. The poem describes the stealthy midnight burial in the citadel which he had defended with his life, and gives a faithful picture of the absolute devotion of these British soldiers to their beloved leader. The costly marble memorial erected in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, by an admiring English people, is less known and less admired than this delicately beautiful tribute which gives voice to the silent love and devotion of the British soldiers for their slain leader. BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, We buried him darkly, at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him. Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, |