Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier manhood;

So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying.

Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever,

As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its portals,

690

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over. Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the darkness,

Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking.

Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied reverberations,

Heard he that cry of pain, and through

the hush that succeeded

Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,

'Gabriel! O my beloved!' and died away into silence.

Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of his childhood; Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,

700

Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow, As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision.

Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,

Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.

Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken. Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,

Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom.

Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into darkness,

As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement.

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All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

10

20

RESIGNATION 1

THERE is no flock, however watched and

tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children cry

ing,

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,2

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

ΤΟ

We see but dimly through the mists and

vapors;

Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.

1 See the Life of Longfellow, vol. ii, pp. 129-131, on the death of Fanny Longfellow and her burial, September 11 and 12, 1848; and the entry in Longfellow's Journal a month later, November 12: An inappeasable longing to see her comes over me at times, which I can hardly control.'

See also the letter from Edward Everett, Life, vol. ii, p. 165.

2 Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground.' Job v, 6. (Quoted by LONGFELLOW.)

20

Perfect and finished in every part,
A little model the Master wrought,
Which should be to the larger plan
What the child is to the man,
Its counterpart in miniature;
That with a hand more swift and sure
The greater labor might be brought
To answer to his inward thought.
And as he labored, his mind ran o'er
The various ships that were built of yore,
And above them all, and strangest of all
Towered the Great Harry,1 crank and tall,
Whose picture was hanging on the wall, 30
With bows and stern raised high in air,
And balconies hanging here and there,
And signal lanterns and flags afloat,
And eight round towers, like those that
frown

From some old castle, looking down
Upon the drawbridge and the moat.
And he said with a smile, 'Our ship, I wis,
Shall be of another form than this!'
It was of another form, indeed;
Built for freight, and yet for speed,
A beautiful and gallant craft;

40

Broad in the beam, that the stress of the

One thought, one word, can set in motion !
There's not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,
Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!

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The sun was rising o'er the sea,
And long the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would be
Of some great, airy argosy,
Framed and launched in a single day.
That silent architect, the sun,
Had hewn and laid them every one,
Ere the work of man was yet begun.
Beside the Master, when he spoke,
A youth, against an anchor leaning,
Listened, to catch his slightest meaning, 80
Only the long waves, as they broke
In ripples on the pebbly beach,
Interrupted the old man's speech.

Beautiful they were, in sooth,
The old man and the fiery youth!
The old man, in whose busy brain
Many a ship that sailed the main
Was modelled o'er and o'er again;
The fiery youth, who was to be
The heir of his dexterity,

90

The heir of his house, and his daughter's hand,

When he had built and launched from land What the elder head had planned.

• Thus,' said he,' will we build this ship!
Lay square the blocks upon the slip,
And follow well this plan of mine.
Choose the timbers with greatest care;
Of all that is unsound beware;
For only what is sound and strong
To this vessel shall belong.
Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine
Here together shall combine.
A goodly frame, and a goodly fame,
And the UNION be her name!

For the day that gives her to the sea
Shall give my daughter unto thee !'

The Master's word

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I 10

And when the hot, long day was o'er,
The young man at the Master's door
Sat with the maiden calm and still,
And within the porch, a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales, 150
Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again,
The chance and change of a sailor's life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,

His roving fancy, like the wind,

That nothing can stay and nothing can

bind,