VI.

AMERICAN POETS.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race across the Atlantic-our cousins I do not know how many degrees removedhave in no way better proved their kindred than by the growing pith and substance of their literature. Of such prose writers as Channing, Norton, Prescott, Ware, Cooper, and Washington Irving, together with the many who, where there are such leaders, are sure to press close upon their footsteps, any country might be proud. But one want they had; and although not particularly fond of pleading guilty to deficiencies of any sort, they confessed it themselves the want of a great poet. Of elegant versifiers there was no lack. I doubt if, for the fifty years that preceded the first French revolution, England herself had been better off in the way of smooth and polished rhyme. But they are an ambitious race, these transatlantic kinsmen of ours, commonly called Americans; they like to have the best that can be obtained in every department, and they do not dislike to vaunt of their possessions; and now that their great literary want is supplied in the person of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, they may glorify themselves to their heart's content, certain that every lover of poetry, whether born under the red-cross banner of Queen Victoria, or the stripes and stars of the States, will join the general All Hail!

I do not know a more enviable reputation than Professor Longfellow has won for himself in this country-won too with a rapidity seldom experienced by our own native poets. The terseness of diction and force of thought delight the old; the grace and melody enchant the young; the unaffected and all-pervading piety satisfy the serious; and a certain slight touch of mysticism carries

the imaginative reader fairly off his feet. For my own part, I confess, not only to the being captivated by all these qualities (mysticism excepted), but to the farther fact of yielding to the charm of certain lines, I can not very well tell why, and walking about the house repeating to myself such figments as this:

"I give the first watch of the night

To the red planet Mars,"

as if I were still eighteen. I am not sure that this is not as great a proof of the power of the poet as can be given.

In speaking of Professor Longfellow's popularity in England, I refer chiefly to the smaller pieces, which form, however, the larger portion of his collected works. The "Spanish Student," although beautifully written, is too little dramatic, and above all, too Spanish for our national taste; and "Evangeline," with its experiments in English versification, and its strange union of a semi-ideal passion with the most real and positive of all Dutch painting, must be regarded as still upon its trial.

The shorter poems are enough. I would fain have enriched my pages with the "Excelsior" and the "Psalm of Life," but they have been long enough printed to have found their way to many hearths and hearts. I prefer, therefore, quoting from the later volumes, which have only recently become known in England, although I could not resist the temptation of inserting the noble tribute to the painter and the bard, which makes the glory of the stirring lyric on Nuremberg.

NUREMBERG.

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across. broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands.

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng;

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;

And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunda's hand:

On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.

Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of art-
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;

And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

In the church of Sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.

Here, when art was still religion, with a simple reverent heart,
Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art.

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;
Dead he is not-but departed-for the artist never dies.

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair

That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes Walked of yore the Master-Singers, chanting rude poetic strains.

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild, Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sung and laughed.

But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,

As the old man, gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers win for thee the world's regard,
But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away

As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay;

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of labor, the long pedigree of toil.

THE OPEN WINDOW.

The old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the graveled pathway
The light and shadow played.

I saw the nursery window
Wide open to the air;

But the faces of the children
They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates
Who would return no more.

They walked not under the lindens,
They played not in the hall;
But shadow and silence and sadness
Were hanging over all.

The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet familiar tone;

But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone.

And the boy that walked beside me
He could not understand

Why closer in mine,-ah, closer!-
I pressed his warm soft hand!

The charming touch in the last stanza has a pathos peculiar to Professor Longfellow. The next poem is also one which, if printed anonymously, we should, I think, be ready to assign to the right author

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.

L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: Toujours-jamais! Jamais toujours!-JAQUES BRIDAINE.

Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient time-piece says to all:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands

From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk, who, under his cloak,

Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

With sorrowful voice to all who pass:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
As if, like God, it all things saw,

It calmly repeats those words of awe:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;

The stranger.feasted at his board;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning time-piece never ceased:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

There groups of merry children played;
There youths and maidens, dreaming, strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime

And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold

Those hours the ancient time-piece told:

Forever-never!

Never-forever!"