"Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Sa. !” A bold Bohemian cries; If there's a heaven upon this earth, In Bohemia it lies. "There the tailor blows the flute, And then the landlord's daughter HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. ST. AGNES' EVE. DEEP on the convent-roof the snows The shadows of the convent-towers Still creeping with the creeping hours Make Thou my spirit pure and clear Or this first snowdrop of the year As these white robes are soil'd and dark To yonder shining ground As this pale taper's earthly spark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, So in my earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro' all yon starlight keen, He lifts me to the golden doors; One sabbath deep and wide A light upon the shining sea The Bridegroom with his bride! ALFRED TENNYSON. THE ROPEWALK. IN that building, long and low, At the end, an open door; As the spinners to the end Gleam the long threads in the sun Two fair maidens in a swing, First before my vision pass; Then a booth of mountebanks, And a girl poised high in air And a weary look of care. Then a homestead among farms, Then an old man in a tower, While the rope coils round and round Like a serpent at his feet, And again, in swift retreat, Nearly lifts him from the ground. Then within a prison-yard, Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, Breath of Christian charity, Blow, and sweep it from the earth! Then a school-boy, with his kite And an eager, upward look; Ships rejoicing in the breeze, Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, Anchors dragged through faithless sand; Sea-fog drifting overhead, And, with lessening line and lead, Sailors feeling for the land. All these scenes do I behold, In that building long and low; And the spinners backward go. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. THE FORCED RECRUIT. SOLFERINO, 1859. In the ranks of the Austrian you found him, Yet bury him here where around him Venetian, fair-featured and slender, No stranger, and yet not a traitor, Though alien the cloth on his breast, Underneath it how seldom a greater Young heart has a shot sent to rest! By your enemy tortured and goaded As orphans yearn on to their mothers, He yearned to your patriot bands: "Let me die for our Italy, brothers, If not in your ranks, by your hands! "Aim straightly, fire steadily! spare me A ball in the body which may Deliver my heart here, and tear me This badge of the Austrian away!" |