One thought, one word, can set in motion !
There's not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,
Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!

The sun was rising o'er the sea,
And long the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would be
Of some great, airy argosy,
Framed and launched in a single day.
That silent architect, the sun,

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Had hewn and laid them every one,
Ere the work of man was yet begun.
Beside the Master, when he spoke,
A youth, against an anchor leaning,
Listened, to catch his slightest meaning, 80
Only the long waves, as they broke
In ripples on the pebbly beach,
Interrupted the old man's speech.

Beautiful they were, in sooth,
The old man and the fiery youth!
The old man, in whose busy brain
Many a ship that sailed the main
Was modelled o'er and o'er again;
The fiery youth, who was to be
The heir of his dexterity,

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The heir of his house, and his daughter's hand,

When he had built and launched from land What the elder head had planned.

'Thus,' said he,' will we build this ship!
Lay square the blocks upon the slip,
And follow well this plan of mine.
Choose the timbers with greatest care;
Of all that is unsound beware;
For only what is sound and strong
To this vessel shall belong.
Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine
Here together shall combine.

A goodly frame, and a goodly fame,
And the UNION be her name!

For the day that gives her to the sea
Shall give my daughter unto thee !'

The Master's word

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And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair,
With the breath of morn and the soft sea air.
Like a beauteous barge was she,

Still at rest on the sandy beach,
Just beyond the billow's reach;
But he

Was the restless, seething, stormy sea!
Ah, how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,
And he who followeth Love's behest
Far excelleth all the rest!

Thus with the rising of the sun Was the noble task begun,

And

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soon throughout the ship-yard's
bounds

Were heard the intermingled sounds
Of axes and of mallets, plied
With vigorous arms on every side;
Plied so deftly and so well,

That, ere the shadows of evening fell,
The keel of oak for a noble ship,
Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong,
Was lying ready, and stretched along
The blocks, well placed upon the slip.
Happy, thrice happy, every one
Who sees his labor well begun,
And not perplexed and multiplied,
By idly waiting for time and tide !

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140

And when the hot, long day was o'er,
The young man at the Master's door
Sat with the maiden calm and still,
And within the porch, a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales, 150
Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again,
The chance and change of a sailor's life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,

His roving fancy, like the wind,

That nothing can stay and nothing can

bind,

The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides and yet unites mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile
illume

The silent group in the twilight gloom, 170
And thoughtful faces, as in a dream;
And for a moment one might mark
What had been hidden by the dark,
That the head of the maiden lay at rest,
Tenderly, on the young man's breast!

Day by day the vessel grew,
With timbers fashioned strong and true,
Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,
Till, framed with perfect symmetry,
A skeleton ship rose up to view!
And around the bows and along the side
The heavy hammers and mallets plied,
Till after many a week, at length,
Wonderful for form and strength,
Sublime in its enormous bulk,
Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!

180

And around it columns of smoke, upwreathing,

Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething Caldron, that glowed,

And overflowed

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210

By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master's daughter!
On many a dreary and misty night,
'T will be seen by the rays of the signal
light,

Speeding along through the rain and the dark,

Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!

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Would remind them forevermore Of their native forests they should not see again.

2 I wish to anticipate a criticism on this passage, by stating that sometimes, though not usually, vessels are launched fully sparred and rigged. I have availed myself of the exception as better suited to my purposes than the general rule; but the reader will see that it is neither a blunder nor a poetic license. On this subject a friend in Portland, Maine, writes me thus: In this State, and also, I am told, in New York, ships are sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to save time, or to make a show. There was a fine large ship launched last summer at Ellsworth, fully sparred and rigged. Some years ago a ship was launched here, with her rigging, spars, sails, and cargo aboard. She sailed the next day and was never heard of again! I hope this will not be the fate of your poem!' (LONGFEL LOW.)

All is finished! and at length

Has come the bridal day

Of beauty and of strength.

To-day the vessel shall be launched!

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, And o'er the bay,

Slowly, in all his splendors dight,

The great sun rises to behold the sight.
The ocean old,
Centuries old,

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,

Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,

With ceaseless flow,

His beard of snow

Heaves with the heaving of his breast. He waits impatient for his bride. There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Decked with flags and streamers gay, In honor of her marriage day,

Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster

Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-

The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart

Of the sailor's heart,

All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,

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270

280

And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he:-
'Like unto ships far off at sea,

Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,

Floats and swings the horizon's bound, 320
Seems at its distant rim to rise

And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,

As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves

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Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our
tears,

390

THE LADDER OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

1849.

SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said,3 That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,

That have their root in thoughts of ill;

Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will;

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1 These lines, written twelve years before the beginning of the Civil War (and substituted for a weaker ending with which Longfellow was dissatisfied -see the Life, vol. iii, pp. 363, 443-4), seemed word by word to fit the circumstances and feelings of the zation in that great struggle, and during its progress rouse thousands of audiences to passionate enthusiasm. Lincoln's feeling for them typifies that of the whole people. Mr. Noah Brooks in his paper on Lincoln's Inagination (Scribner's Monthly, August, 1879), mentions that he found the President one day attracted by these stanzas, quoted in a political speech. Knowing the whole poem,' he adds, as one of my early exercises in recitation, I began, at his request, with the description of the launch of the ship, and repeated it to the end. As he listened to the last lines, his eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks were wet. He did not speak for some minutes, but finally said, with simplicity: It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that." (Quoted in the Cambridge Edition of Longfellow.) The first public reading of the poem, by Fanny Kemble, is described in Longfellow's Journal, February 12, 1850. Life, vol. ii, p. 172.

2 The Seaside and the Fireside, in which 'The Building of the Ship' holds the first place, is dated 1850; but the book was actually published late in 1849. 3 The words of St. Augustine are, De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcanius.' Sermon III. De Ascensione. (LONGFELLOW.)