The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1886 - 1407 pages
 

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Page 26 - The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. His hair is crisp, and black, and long, His face is like the tan; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whate'er he can, And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man.
Page 26 - He goes on Sunday to the church, And sits among his boys ; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice, Singing in the village choir, And it makes his heart rejoice. It sounds to him like her mother's voice, Singing in Paradise ! He needs must think of her once more, How in the grave she lies ; And with his hard, rough hand he wipes A tear out of his eyes. Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, Onward through life he goes ; Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees...
Page 116 - We know what master laid thy keel; What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel; Who made each mast and sail and rope; What anvils rang, what hammers beat; In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
Page 226 - Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns.
Page xi - 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.
Page 20 - The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull.
Page 30 - The shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior ! His brow was sad ; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior...
Page 225 - and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war ; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the. tide. Meanwhile...
Page 120 - She is not dead, — the child of our affection, — But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, By guardian angels led, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives, whom we call dead.
Page 69 - Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ; And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say, " Peace ! " Peace ! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies ! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.

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