For men mis-hear thy call in Spring, I think old Cæsar must have heard I, who dreamed not when I came here Now hear thee say in Roman key, 1862. BOSTON HYMN 100 1862. Building for their sons the State, Which they shall rule with pride. They forbore to break the chain Which bound the dusky tribe, Checked by the owners' fierce disdain, Lured by Union' as the bribe. Destiny sat by, and said, Pang for pang your seed shall pay, Hide in false peace your coward head, I bring round the harvest day.' II FREEDOM all winged expands, 30 Whose dark sky sheds the snowflake down, The snowflake is her banner's star, She will not refuse to dwell Hid from men of Northern brain, For freedom he will strike and strive, III IN an age of fops and toys, 40 When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.1 IV Он, well for the fortunate soul Yet happier he whose inward sight, But best befriended of the God Warned by an inward voice, Heeds not the darkness and the dread, And the sweet heaven his deed secures. 80 90 100 110 1 These lines, a moment after they were written, seemed as if they had been carved on marble for a thousand years. (HOLMES, Life of Emerson.) Compare Emerson's Address at the Dedication of the Soldiers' Monument in Concord,' especially the paragraph beginning: All sorts of men went to the war; and his Harvard Commemoration Speech, July 21, 1865.' Then plunge to depths profound. Here once the Deluge ploughed, The sowers make haste to depart, Waters that wash my garden-side Hither hasted, in old time, Jove, 20 2 Emerson wrote to Carlyle, May 14, 1846: 'I, too, have a new plaything, the best I ever had, a woodlot. Last fall I bought a piece of more than forty acres, on the border of a little lake half a mile wide and more, called Walden Pond; -a place to which my feet have for years been accustomed to bring me once or twice a week at all seasons.' See the whole letter, in the Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, vol. ii, pp. 123–125. Canst thou copy in verse one chime Of the wood-bell's peal and cry, Wonderful verse of the gods, Ever the words of the gods resound; Wandering voices in the air When the shadow fell on the lake, Air-bells of fortune that shine and break, But the meanings cleave to the lake, These the fates of men forecast, TERMINUS1 It is time to be old, To take in sail: 40 50 Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: 'No more! No farther shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few. As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 60 And every wave is charmed.' 1866. 1 In the last days of the year 1866, when I was returning from a long stay in the Western States, I met my father in New York just starting for his usual win 1866. 10 20 36 40 1867. ter lecturing trip, in those days extending beyond the Mississippi. We spent the night together at the St. Denis Hotel, and as we sat by the fire, he read me two or three of his poems for the new May-Day volume, among them Terminus.' It almost startled me. No thought of his ageing had ever come to me, and there he sat, with no apparent abatement of bodily vigor, and young in spirit, recognizing with serene acquiescence his failing forces; I think he smiled as he read. recognized, as none of us did, that his working days were nearly done. They lasted about five years longer, although he lived, in comfortable health, yet ten years beyond those of his activity. Almost at the time when he wrote Terminus' he wrote in his journal: - He Within I do not find wrinkles and used heart, but unspent youth.' (E. W. EMERSON, in the Centenary Edition.) HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE SPIRIT OF POETRY Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes, Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in, Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale, The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees, In many a lazy syllable, repeating And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill The world; and, in these wayward days of youth, My busy fancy oft embodies it, As a bright image of the light and beauty 40 That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms |