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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
(1807- .)

MR. LONGFELLOW, Professor of Modern Languages in Harvard University, is one of the most fertile and popular of the American poets, He has tried almost every style of verse, and won applause in translations, prose sketches, and criticism. His first collection of poems, "Voices of the Night," appeared in 1839. Though inferior to Bryant, in his best pieces, Mr. Longfellow has accomplished more in various styles than any other of his countrymen, and is always clear and elegant in diction. Our first extract is a specimen of hexameter verse from a tale entitled "Evangeline."

A VOYAGE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

SOFTLY the evening came. The sun from the western horizon
Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape;
Twinkling vapours arose; and sky, and water, and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver,
Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water.
Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness.
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling

A PSALM OF LIFE.

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Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her. Then from a neighbouring thicket, the mocking-bird, wildest of singers,

Swinging aloft on a willow-spray that hung over the water,
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music,
That the whole air, and the woods, and the waves, seemed silent
to listen.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest !
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac 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 !

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time :-

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

EXCELSIOR.

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device-
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue-
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan-
Excelsior!

Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead;
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied:
"Excelsior!"

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest Thy weary head upon this breast!" A tear stood in his bright blue eye, But still he answered with a sigh: "Excelsior!"

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche !"

This was the peasant's last good-night; A voice replied, far up the height:

"Excelsior!"

WOODS IN WINTER.

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

A voice cried through the startled air :
"Excelsior!"

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner, with the strange device-
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell like a falling star :
"Excelsior!"

WOODS IN WINTER.

When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the white-thorn blows the gale
With solemn feet I tread the hill

That over-brows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away

Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.

On the grey maple's crusted bark,
Its tender shoots the hoar-frost nips;
Whilst in the frozen fountain—hark !—
His piercing beak the bittern dips.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,

And summer winds the stillness broke-
The crystal icicle is hung.

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs,
Pour out the river's gradual tide,

Shrilly the skater's iron rings

And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay;
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day!

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But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods, within your crowd;
And gathered winds, in hoarse accord,
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SPRING.

When the warm sun, that brings

Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, 'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,

When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell

The coming-in of storms.

From the earth's loosened mould

The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives; Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,

The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled song

Comes through the pleasant woods, and coloured wings Are glancing in the golden sun, along

The forest openings.

And when bright sunset fills

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 day is gone,

In the blue lake, the sky, o'erreaching 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.

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