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Download FIRESIDE POETS.Pdf FIRESIDE POETS Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime,3 A Psalm of Life And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Footprints, that perhaps another, Background Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,4 Longfellow wrote “A Psalm of Life” in 1838 after A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, suffering through the tragic death of his first wife, Seeing, shall take heart again. Mary, coupled with the loss of the baby they were Let us, then, be up and doing, happily expecting. Longfellow intended the poem as With a heart for any fate; an inspiration to himself and others to overcome the Still achieving, still pursuing, misfortunes of the past and to live productively in Learn to labor and to wait. the present. In contrast, “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” was penned when Longfellow was in his early seventies. That poem reveals the poet’s acceptance of the inevitability of death. The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Tell me not, in mournful numbers,1 The tide rises, the tide falls. Life is but an empty dream! The twilight darkens, the curlew5 calls; For the soul is dead that slumbers, Along the sea sands damp and brown And things are not what they seem. The traveler hastens toward the town, Life is real! Life is earnest! And the tide rises, the tide falls. And the grave is not its goal: Darkness settles on roofs and walls, Dust thou art, to dust returnest, But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls: Was not spoken of the soul. The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Efface6 the footprints in the sands, Is our destined end or way; And the tide rises, the tide falls. But to act, that each tomorrow The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls Find us farther than today. Stamp and neigh, as the hostler7 calls: Art is long, and Time is fleeting, The day returns, but nevermore And our hearts, though stout and brave, Returns the traveler to the shore, Still, like muffled drums, are beating And the tide rises, the tide falls. Funeral marches to the grave. In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac2 of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! 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! 1 numbers verses. 5 curlew (kur loo) n. large wading bird associated with the 2 bivouac (biv wak) n. temporary encampment evening. 3 sublime (suh blime) adj. noble; inspiring 6 efface (uh fays) v. erase; wipe out 4 main open sea. 7 hostler (hahs luhr) n. person who tends horses at an inn or stable. In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round Thanatopsis all, Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste— by William Cullen Bryant Are but the solemn decorations all To him who in the love of Nature holds 45 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, Communion with her visible forms, she speaks The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, A various language; for his gayer hours Are shining on the sad abodes of death, She has a voice of gladness, and a smile Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 5 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides The globe are but a handful to the tribes Into his darker musings, with a mild 50 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 9 10 And healing sympathy, that steals away Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Their sharpness, ere1 he is aware. When thoughts Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 11 Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 10 Over thy spirit, and sad images Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there: Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 55 And millions in those solitudes, since first And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,2 The flight of years began, have laid them down Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart— In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone. Go forth, under the open sky, and list So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 15 To Nature’s teachings, while from all around— In silence from the living, and no friend Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— 60 Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh The all-beholding sun shall see no more When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Plod on, and each one as before will chase 20 Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 65 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim And make their bed with thee. As the long train Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, Of ages glide away, the sons of men, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes 25 Thine individual being, shalt thou go In the full strength of years, matron and maid, To mix forever with the elements, 70 The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man— To be a brother to the insensible rock Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain3 By those, who in their turn shall follow them. Turns with his share,4 and treads upon. The oak 30 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves Yet not to thine eternal resting place 75 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish His chamber in the silent halls of death, Couch5 more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 35 The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good, By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 80 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch All in one mighty sepulcher.6 The hills About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun—the vales Stretching in pensive7 quietness between; 8 40 The venerable woods—rivers that move 1 ere before. 8 venerable (ven er uh buhl) adj. worthy of respect 2 narrow house coffin. 9 Take … morning allusion to Psalm 139:9. 3 swain country youth. 10 Barcan (bar kuhn) referring to Barca, a desert region in 4 share plowshare. North Africa. 5 couch bed. 11 Oregon river flowing between Oregon and Washington, 6 sepulcher (sep uhl ker) n. tomb now known as the Columbia River. 7 pensive (pen siv) adj. expressing deep thoughtfulness As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,— Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Still, as the spiral grew, Long has it waved on high, He left the past year’s dwelling for the new, And many an eye has danced to see Stole with soft step its shining archway through, That banner in the sky; Built up its idle door, Beneath it rung the battle shout, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no And burst the cannons roar;— more. The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood, Cast from her lap, forlorn! Where knelt the vanquished foe, From thy dead lips a clearer note is born When winds were hurrying o’er the flood, Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn! And waves were white below, While on mine ear it rings, No more shall feel the victor’s tread, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that Or know the conquered knee;— 1 sings:— The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea! Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Oh, better that her shattered hulk Leave thy low-vaulted past! Should sink beneath the wave; Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Her thunders shook the mighty deep, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, And there should be her grave; Till thou at length art free, Nail to the mast her holy flag. Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea. Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale! The First Snowfall The Chambered Nautilus by James Russell Lowell The snow had begun in the gloaming,2 By Oliver Wendell Holmes And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, With a silence deep and white.
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