From The Spanish Cancioneros
I.
Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful,
Heart so full of care and cumber,
I was lapped in rest and slumber,
Ye have made me wakeful, wistful!
In this life of labor endless
Who shall comfort my distresses?
Querulous my soul and friendless
In its sorrow shuns caresses.
Ye have made me, ye have made me
Querulous of you, that care not,
Eyes so tristful, yet I dare not
Say to what ye have betrayed me.
II.
Some day, some day
O troubled breast,
Shalt thou find rest.
If Love in thee
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Voices Of The Night : Midnight Mass For The Dying Year
Yes, the Year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard,
Sorely, sorely!
The leaves are falling, falling,
Solemnly and slow;
Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,
It is a sound of woe,
A sound of woe!
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll;
They are chanting solemn masses,
Singing, 'Pray for this poor soul,
Pray, pray!'
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Flowers-De-Luce: Noël
Quand les astres de Noël
Brillaient, palpitaient au ciel,
Six gaillards, et chacun ivre,
Chantaient gaiment dans le givre,
'Bons amis,
Allons donc chez Agassiz!'
Ces illustres Pelerins
D'Outre-Mer adroits et fins,
Se donnant des airs de pretre,
A l'envi se vantaient d'etre
'Bons amis,
De Jean Rudolphe Agassiz!'
Oeil-de-Perdrix, grand farceur,
Sans reproche et sans pudeur,
Dans son patois de Bourgogne,
Bredouillait comme un ivrogne,
'Bons amis,
J'ai danse chez Agassiz!'
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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To an Old Danish Song-Book
Welcome, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.
The ungrateful world
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,
Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met thee.
There are marks of age,
There are thumb-marks on thy margin,
Made by hands that clasped thee rudely,
At the alehouse.
Soiled and dull thou art;
Yellow are thy time-worn pages,
As the russet, rain-molested
Leaves of autumn.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Golden Mile-Stone. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
Leafless are the trees; their purple branches
Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,
Rising silent
In the Red Sea of the winter sunset.
From the hundred chimneys of the village,
Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,
Smoky columns
Tower aloft into the air of amber.
At the window winks the flickering fire-light;
Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,
Social watch-fires
Answering one another through the darkness.
On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,
And like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree
For its freedom
Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Warden of the Cinque Ports
A mist was driving down the British Channel,
The day was just begun,
And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.
It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,
And the white sails of ships;
And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.
Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover
Were all alert that day,
To see the French war-steamers speeding over,
When the fog cleared away.
Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,
Their cannon, through the night,
Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,
The sea-coast opposite.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Walter Von Der Vogel Weid
Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures,
Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long."
Thus the bard of love departed;
And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted
By the children of the choir.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Warden Of The Cinque Ports. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
A mist was driving down the British Channel,
The day was just begun,
And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.
It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,
And the white sails of ships;
And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.
Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover
Were all alert that day,
To see the French war-steamers speeding over,
When the fog cleared away.
Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,
Their cannon, through the night,
Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,
The sea-coast opposite.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Poetic Aphorisms. (From The Sinngedichte Of Friedrich Von Logau)
MONEY
Whereunto is money good?
Who has it not wants hardihood,
Who has it has much trouble and care,
Who once has had it has despair.
THE BEST MEDICINES
Joy and Temperance and Repose
Slam the door on the doctor's nose.
SIN
Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.
POVERTY AND BLINDNESS
A blind man is a poor man, and blind a poor man is;
For the former seeth no man, and the latter no man sees.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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By The Fireside : Tegner's Death (Tegner's Drapa)
I heard a voice, that cried,
'Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!'
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.
I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.
And the voice forever cried,
'Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!'
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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