Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, Mauger the farmer's sighs; and at the gate . A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

5

THE RHODORA

On being asked whence is the flower

In May, when sea winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the redbird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:

Why thou were there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:

But, in my simple ignorance, suppose

The self-same Power that brought me there brought

you.

TERMINUS

It is time to be old,

To take in sail;

The god of bounds,

Who sets to seas a shore,

Came to me in his fatal rounds,

And said: "No more!

No farther shoot

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.

Fancy departs: no more invent;

Contract thy firmament

To the compass of a tent.

There's not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while

Still plan and smile,

And fault of novel germs
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,

Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath

The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heart and nerveless reins

Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.”

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
"Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed."

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR
"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,

Why dost thou haunt me?"

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
And like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe

From the heart's chamber.

"I was a Viking old!

My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
For this I sought thee.

"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.

"Oft to his frozen lair

Tracked I the grisly bear,

While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;

Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,

Until the soaring lark

Sang from the meadow.

"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew

With the marauders.