Kéramos: And Other Poems,

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Houghton, Osgood, 1878 - 156 pages
 

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Page 77 - As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest...
Page 70 - STAY, stay at home, my heart, and rest ; Home-keeping hearts are happiest, For those that wander they know not where Are full of trouble and full of care ; To stay at home is best.
Page 46 - IN that desolate land and lone, Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone Roar down their mountain path, By their fires the Sioux Chiefs Muttered their woes and griefs And the menace of their wrath. "Revenge !" cried Rain-in-the-Face, "Revenge upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair ! " And the mountains dark and high From their crags re-echoed the cry Of his anger and despair.
Page 32 - A DUTCH PICTURE. SIMON DANZ has come home again, From cruising about with his buccaneers ; He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, And carried away the Dean of Jaen And sold him in Algiers. In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles, And weathercocks flying aloft in air, There are silver tankards of antique styles, Plunder of convent and castle, and piles Of carpets rich and rare. In his tulip-garden there by the town, Overlooking the sluggish stream, With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,...
Page 3 - Turn, turn, my wheel ! Turn round and round Without a pause, without a sound : So spins the flying world away ! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, Follows the motion of my hand ; For some must follow and some command. Though all are made of clay...
Page 61 - Roushan's tasselled cap of red Trembled not upon his head, Careless sat he and upright ; Neither hand nor bridle shook, Nor his head he turned to look, As he galloped out of sight. Flash of harness in the air, Seen a moment like the glare Of a sword drawn from its sheath ; Thus the phantom horseman passed, And the shadow that he cast Leaped the cataract underneath. Reyhan the Arab held his breath While this vision of life and death Passed above him. " Allahu !
Page 5 - Turn, turn, my wheel ! All things must change To something new, to something strange ; Nothing that is can pause or stay ; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day.
Page 66 - Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows, Three caskets of gold with golden keys; Their robes were of crimson silk with rows Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows, Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees. And so the Three Kings rode into the West, Through the dusk of night, over...
Page 69 - The frankincense, with its odour sweet, Was for the Priest, the Paraclete, The myrrh for the body's burying. And the mother wondered and bowed her head, And sat as still as a statue of stone ; Her heart was troubled yet comforted, Remembering what the Angel had said Of an endless reign and of David's throne. Then the Kings rode out of the city gate, With a clatter of hoofs in proud array ; But they went not back to Herod the Great, For they knew his malice and feared his hate, And returned to their...
Page 54 - Lord! we would not advise; But if in thy Providence A tempest should arise To drive the French fleet hence, And scatter it far and wide, Or sink it in the sea, We should be satisfied, And thine the glory be.

About the author (1878)

During his lifetime, Longfellow enjoyed a popularity that few poets have ever known. This has made a purely literary assessment of his achievement difficult, since his verse has had an effect on so many levels of American culture and society. Certainly, some of his most popular poems are, when considered merely as artistic compositions, found wanting in serious ways: the confused imagery and sentimentality of "A Psalm of Life" (1839), the excessive didacticism of "Excelsior" (1841), the sentimentality of "The Village Blacksmith" (1839). Yet, when judged in terms of popular culture, these works are probably no worse and, in some respects, much better than their counterparts in our time. Longfellow was very successful in responding to the need felt by Americans of his time for a literature of their own, a retelling in verse of the stories and legends of these United States, especially New England. His three most popular narrative poems are thoroughly rooted in American soil. "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie" (1847), an American idyll; "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855), the first genuinely native epic in American poetry; and "The Courtship of Miles Standish" (1858), a Puritan romance of Longfellow's own ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. "Paul Revere's Ride," the best known of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn"(1863), is also intensely national. Then, there is a handful of intensely personal, melancholy poems that deal in very successful ways with those themes not commonly thought of as Longfellow's: sorrow, death, frustration, the pathetic drift of humanity's existence. Chief among these are "My Lost Youth" (1855), "Mezzo Cammin" (1842), "The Ropewalk" (1854), "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" (1852), and, most remarkable in its artistic success, "The Cross of Snow," a heartfelt sonnet so personal in its expression of the poet's grief for his dead wife that it remained unpublished until after Longfellow's death. A professor of modern literature at Harvard College, Longfellow did much to educate the general reading public in the literatures of Europe by means of his many anthologies and translations, the most important of which was his masterful rendition in English of Dante's Divine Comedy (1865-67).

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