The Complete Poems of Longfellow | Page 9

What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of
Care,
And they complain no more.
Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed
for, the most fair,

The best-beloved Night!
A PSALM OF LIFE.
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG
MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For
the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou
art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to
act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and
brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the
grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not
like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;--
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A
forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still
achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,


He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow
between.
"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have naught but the
bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I
will give them all back again."
He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping
leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his
sheaves.
"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and
smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where he was once a
child.
"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."
And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did
love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light
above.
O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'T was an
angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.
THE LIGHT OF STARS.
The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All
silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And
the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.
Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
O no!
from that blue tent above,
A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,

Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.
O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou
beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.
Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;
I give
the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.
The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and
resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.
And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As
one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.
O fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know
how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS.
When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night

Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,

Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved,
the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,

By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!
They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,

Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,


More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,

Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like
the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft
rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I
but remember only
Such as these have lived and died!
FLOWERS.
Spake