By The Fireside: The Singers

God sent his Singers upon the earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.

The first, a youth, with soul of fire,
Held in his hand a golden lyre;
Through groves he wandered, and by streams,
Playing the music of our dreams.

The second, with a bearded face,
Stood singing in the market-place,
And stirred with accents deep and loud
The hearts of all the listening crowd.

A gray old man, the third and last,

Stands in cathedrals dim and vast,
While the majestic organ rolled
Contrition from its mouths of gold.

And those who heard the Singers three
Disputed which the best might be;
For still their music seemed to start
Discordant echoes in each heart,

But the Master said, 'I see
No best in kind, but in degree;
I gave various gifts to each,
To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.

'These are the three great chords of might,
And he whose ear is tuned aright
Will hear no discord in the three,
 But the most perfect harmony.'

 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An April Day

When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,
When forst glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming-on of storms.

Form the earth's loosened could
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrive;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled song

Comes from the pleasen woods, and colored wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
The forest openings.

When the bright sunset fulls
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,
And wide the upland glows.

And when the eve is born,
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far,
Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,
And the fair trees look over, side by side
And see themselves below.

Sweet April! many a though
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.


By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By The Fireside : Sand Of The Desert In An Hour-Glass

A handful of red sand, from the hot clime

Or Arab desert bought,

Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,

The minister of Thought.

How many weary centuries has it been
About those deserts blown!
How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite
Trampled and passed it o'er,
When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight
His favorite son they bore.


Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,

Crushed it beneath their tread;
Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air
Scattered is they sped;

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth
Held close in her caress,
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith
Illumed the wilderness;

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms

Pacing the Dead Sea beach,

And singing slow their old Armenian psaml's

In half-articulate speech;




Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate
With westward steps depart;
Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,
And resolute in heart!

These have passed over it, or may have passed!
Now in this crystal tower
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last
It counts the passing hour.

And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;

Before my dreamy eye
Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky.

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,

This golden thread

Dilates into a column high and vast,

A form of fear and dread.

And onward, and across the setting sun,
Across the boundless plain,
The column and its broader shadow run,

Till thought pursues in vain.
The vision vanishes!These walls again

Shut out the lurid sun,

Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain;

The half-hour's sand is run!

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow