Slike strani
PDF
ePub

So, as I enter here from day to day,

And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate

To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the eternal ages watch and wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

GIOTTO'S TOWER

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet
By self-devotion and by self-restraint,
Whose pleasure is to run without complaint
On unknown errands of the Paraclete,
Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,

Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint
Around the shining forehead of the saint,
And are in their completeness incomplete!

In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower,
The lily of Florence blossoming in stone,
A vision, a delight, and a desire,

The builder's perfect and centennial flower,
That in the night of ages bloomed alone,
But wanting still the glory of the spire.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

MY LOST YOUTH

OFTEN I think of the beautiful town

That is seated by the sea;

Often in thought go up and down

The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.

MY LOST YOUTH

And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,

31

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,

The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.

And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;

And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,

And the magic of the sea.

And the voice of that wayward song

Is singing and saying still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,

And the fort upon the hill;

The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.

And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the sea-fight far away,

How it thundered o'er the tide! And the dead captains as they lay

In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay

Where they in battle died.

And the sound of that mournful song

Goes through me with a thrill:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves,

The shadows of Deering's Woods;

And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.

And the verse of that sweet old song,

It flutters and murmurs still:

“A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart

Across the school-boy's brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,

That in part are prophecies, and in part

Are longings wild and vain.

And the voice of that fitful song

Sings on, and is never still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

MY LOST YOUTH

There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die;

33

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o'ershadow each well known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,

And with joy that is almost pain

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were,

I find my lost youth again.

And the strange and beautiful song,

The groves are repeating it still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

THE FIRE OF DRIFTWOOD

WE sat within the farmhouse old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,

That words are powerless to express,

And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »