LONGFELLOW'S "BOOK OF SONNETS"

'T WAS Sunday evening as I wandered down
The central highway of this swarming place,
And felt a pleasant stillness — not a trace
Of Saturday's harsh turmoil in the town;
Then as a gentle breeze just stirs a gown,
Yet almost motionless, or as the face

Of silence smiles, I heard the chimes of "Grace"
Sound murmuring through the autumn evening's

brown.

To-day, again, I past along Broadway

In the fierce tumult and mid-noise of noon,
While 'neath my feet the solid pavement shook;
When lo! it seemed that bells began to play
Upon a Sabbath eve a silver tune

For as I walked I read the poet's book.

"H. H."

I WOULD that in the verse she loved some word,
Not all unfit, I to her praise might frame
Some word wherein the memory of her name
Should through long years its incense still afford.
But no, her spirit smote with its own sword;

Herself has lit the fire whose blood-red flame
Shall not be quenched - this is her living fame.
Who struck so well the sonnet's subtile chord.
None who e'er knew her can believe her dead;
Tho' should she die they deem it well might be
Her spirit took its everlasting flight

In summer's glory, by the sunset sea

That onward through the Golden Gate it fled.
Ah, where that bright soul is cannot be night.

THE MODERN RHYMER

141

THE MODERN RHYMER

I

Now you who rhyme, and I who rhyme,
Have not we sworn it, many a time,
That we no more our verse would scrawl,
For Shakespeare he has sung it all!
And yet, whatever others see,

The earth is fresh to you and me;

And birds that sing, and winds that blow,
And blooms that make the country glow,
And lusty swains, and maidens bright,
And clouds by day, and stars by night,
And all the pictures in the skies

That moved before Will Shakespeare's eyes;
Love, hate, and scorn; frost, fire, and flower;
On us as well as him have power.

Go to our spirits shall not be laid,
Silenced and smothered by a shade.
Avon is not the only stream

Can make a poet sing and dream;
Nor are those castles, queens, and kings
The hight of sublunary things.

II

Beneath the false moon's pallid glare,
By the cool fountain in the square
(This gray-green dusty square they set
Where two gigantic highways met)
We hear a music rare and new,

Sweet Shakespeare was not known to you!
You saw the New World's sun arise;
High up it shines in our own skies.

You saw the ocean from the shore;

Through mid-seas now our ship doth roar
A wild, new, teeming world of men
That wakens in the poet's brain

Thoughts, that were never thought before,
Of hope, and longing, and despair,
Wherein man's never-resting race

Westward, still westward, on doth fare,
Doth still subdue, and still aspire,
Or turning on itself doth face
Its own indomitable fire;·

O million-centuried thoughts that make
The Past seem but a shallop's wake!

TWO WORLDS

AND OTHER POEMS