Longfellow
A bit of Longfellow if you would have it.
Christmas Bells
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
The Meeting
After so long an absence
At last we meet again:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
Or does it give us pain?
The tree of life has been shaken,
And but few of us linger now,
Like the Prophet's two or three berries
In the top of the uppermost bough.
We cordially greet each other
In the old, familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
How old and gray he is grown!
We speak of a Merry Christmas
And many a Happy New Year
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not here.
We speak of friends and their fortunes,
And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish
Between the ghosts and the guests;
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.
Song of the Birds
With what a hollow dirge its voice did fill
The vast and empty hollow of the night! -
It had perched itself upon a tall old tree,
That hung its tufted and thick clustering leaves
Midway across the brook; and sung most sweetly,
In all the merry and heart-broken sadness
Of those that love hath crazed. Clearly it ran
Through all the delicate compass of its voice: -
And then again, as from a distant hollow,
I heard its sweet tones like an echo sounding,
And coming, like the memory of a friend
From a far distant country - or the silent land
Of the mourned and the dead, to which we all are passing;
It seemed the song of some poor broken heart,
Haunted forever with love's cruel fancies! -
Of one that has loved much yet never known
The luxury of being loved again!
But when the morning broke, and the green woods
Were all alive with birds - with what a clear
And ravishing sweetness sung the plaintive thrush;
I love to hear its delicate rich voice,
Chanting through all the gloomy day, when loud
Amid the tress is dropping the big rain,
And gray mists wrap the hills; - for aye the sweeter
Its song is, when the day is sad and dark. And thus,
When the bright fountains of a woman's love
Are gently running over, if a cloud
But darken, with its melancholy shadow,
The bright flowers round our way, her heart
Doth learn new sweetness, and her rich voice falls
With more delicious music on our ears.
The Castle-Builder
A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks,
A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes,
A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks,
And towers that touch imaginary skies.
A fearless rider on his father's knee,
An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
Of heroes and adventures manifold.
There will be other towers for thee to build;
There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends, and all filled
With greater marvels and more glorified.
Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listen to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.
