Down the long street she passed with her chaplet of 1

Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, an

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as

Handed down from mother to child, through long gen But a celestial brightness-a more ethereal beautyShone on her face and encircled her form, when, after c Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of music.

Kavanagh, a Tale, "an idyllic prose compa Evangeline, was published in 1849. Two years la Golden Legend was issued-a "quaint anecdotal the Middle Ages." In 1854, Longfellow resigned h sorship at Harvard, and the following year gave to the public.

This is a poetic romance, woven of Indian myt poet can claim but little originality in the matter o events and plot, these being borrowed, with slight v in their applications, from the grotesque legendary ditionary tales of the North American Indians, as by Mr. Schoolcraft, Mr. Catlin, and others.

But the quaint and aboriginal characteristics diction, and rhythm; images that palpitate wit Algic life, and words that dart like arrows, leap a and tumble like cascades, or murmur and wail primeval forest,-these mark this poem as the mos and American of all Longfellow's writings. Here may be termed

HIAWATHA'S WEDDING-TOUR.
FROM the wigwam he departed,
Leading with him Laughing Water;
Hand in hand they went together,
Through the woodland and the meadow,
Left the old man standing lonely

At the doorway of his wigwam,

"Happy are you, Hiawatha, Having such a wife to love!"

Sang the robin, the Opechee,

"Happy are you, Laughing Water, Having such a noble husband!"

From the sky the sun benignant
Looked upon them through the branches,
Saying to them, "O my children,
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow,
Life is checkered shade and sunshine;
Rule by love, O Hiawatha!"

From the sky the moon looked at them,
Filled the lodge with mystic splendors,
Whispered to them, "O my children,

Day is restless, night is quiet,

Man imperious, woman feeble;

Half is mine, although I follow;

Rule by patience, Laughing Water!"

Thus it was they journeyed homeward;

Thus it was that Hiawatha

To the lodge of old Nokomis

Brought the moonlight, starlight, firelight,

Brought the sunshine of his people,

Minnehaha, Laughing Water,

Handsomest of all the women

In the land of the Dacotahs,

In the land of handsome women.

In 1858, Miles Standish was given to the public-a charming idyl of Colonial New England. Could painter desire a more graphic or suggestive theme for his pencil than that afforded by the following extract ?—

PRISCILLA AT THE SPINNING-WHEEL.

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the autumn,
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fin-

gers,

As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune,

After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the

spindle,

“Truly, Priscilla," he said, "when I see you spinning and spin

ning,

Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others, Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a mo

ment;

You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner." Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and swifter; the

spindle

Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in her

fingers;

While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, con

tinued:

"You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen of Hel vetia;

She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton, Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o'er valley and meadow and

mountain,

Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle. She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a

proverb.

So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel shall no

longer

Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with

music.

Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in their childhood,

Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla the spinner!"

Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan maiden, Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise was the sweetest,

Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning, Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering praises of

Alden:

“Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for housewives, Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands. Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready for knitting;

Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and the manners,

Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of John Alden!"

Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands she adjusted,

He, sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him, She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers,

Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding,

Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertly Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares-for how could she help it?

Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body.

Five years later (1863) was published Tales of a Wayside Inn, a series of seven variously themed and rhythmed poems. Our poet's best-sustained effort at Scandinavian versification is here met with. As an extract from the sweetest and also the most original of these tales, we offer the following from

THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH.
THE PRECEPTOR'S SPEECH, AND THE SEQUEL.
WHEN they had ended, from his place apart,
Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong,
And, trembling like a steed before the start,
Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng;
Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart

To speak out what was in him, clear and strong,
Alike regardless of their smile or frown,

And quite determined not to be laughed down.

"Plato, anticipating the Reviewers,

From his Republic banished without pity The Poets; in this little town of yours,

You put to death, by means of a Committee, The ballad-singers and the Troubadours,

The street-musicians of the heavenly city, The birds, who make sweet music for us all In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.