HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 207 So, take and use Thy work! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings Forced praise on our part, past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! Let age approve of youth, and death THE LOST LEADER. JUST for a handful of silver he left us; Lost all the others she lets us devote. They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed. How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, He alone sinks to the rear and the not from his lyre; Deeds will be done, - while he boasts his quiescence, rest Still bidding crouch whom the bade aspire. Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more path untrod, of twilight, the glimmer Never glad, confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him, strike gallantly, Aim at our heart ere we pierce through his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne! HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. [U. S. A.] PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear Hardly a man is now alive He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, One, if by land, and two, if by sea; For the country folk to be up and to Then he said, "Good night!" and with Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, A phantom ship, with each mast and spar foot-Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers, Marching down to their boats on the shore. Then he climbed the tower of the Old By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, Masses and moving shapes of shade, Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride On the opposite shore walked Paul Re vere. Now he patted his horse's side, But mostly he watched with eager search But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. He heard the crowing of the cock, It was one by the village clock, and bare, In the world's broad field of battle, 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! Lives of great men all remind us Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate, Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. RESIGNATION. THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death. She is not dead, the child of our affection, But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, By guardian angels led, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives, whom we call dead. Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursu ing, Behold her grown more fair. Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken The bond which nature gives, Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, May reach her where she lives. There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, Not as a child shall we again behold her : But has one vacant chair! The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead; The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Will not be comforted! Let us be patient! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions For when with raptures wild In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child; But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, Clothed with celestial grace; And beautiful with all the soul's expan sion Shall we behold her face. And though at times impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed, We see but dimly through the mists and The swelling heart heaves moaning like |