Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together. Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the forest, Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love, through its bosom, Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths of the azure abysses. Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors, Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended, Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree, Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol. Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages, Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR1 BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, 1 The ideal commentary on this poem is found in a letter of Longfellow's 'To Emily A-,' August 18, 1859: 'Your letter followed me down here by the seaside, where I am passing the summer with my three little girls. The oldest is about your age; but as little girls' ages keep changing every year, I can never remember exactly how old she is, and have to ask her mamma, who has a better memory than I have. Her name is Alice; I never forget that. She is a nice girl, and loves poetry almost as much as you do. The second is Edith, with blue eyes and beautiful Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour. golden locks which I sometimes call her "nankeen hair" to make her laugh. She is a very busy little woman, and wears gray boots. 'The youngest is Allegra; which, you know, means merry; and she is the merriest little thing you ever saw, always singing and laughing all over ti.e house. I do not say anything about the two boys. They are such noisy fellows it is of no use to talk about them.' (Life, vol. ii. pp. 392–93.) Longfellow and Victor Hugo may perhaps be called the two greatest poets of childhood, and Victor Hugo's letters to his own children are strikingly like the one just quoted. A whisper, and then a silence: A sudden rush from the stairway, They climb up into my turret O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me; They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! 20 30 40 1860. LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 1 It is possible that Mr. Longfellow derived the story from Paul Revere's account of the incident in a letter to Dr. Jeremy Belknap, printed in Mass. Hist. Coll. V. Mr. Frothingham, in his Siege of Boston, pp. 57-59, gives the story mainly according to a memorandum of Richard Devens, Revere's friend and associate. The publication of Mr. Longfellow's poem called out a protracted discussion both as to the church from which Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street, Wanders and watches with eager ears, the signals were hung, and as to the friend who hung the lanterns. The subject is discussed and authorities cited in Memorial History of Boston, iii, 101. (Cambridge Edition, p. 668.) 'Paul Revere's Ride' is the first story in the Tales of a Wayside Inn, a series of tales in verse set in a frame-work something like that of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and supposed to be told by a group of friends gathered at the Red-Horse Inn at Sudbury, about twenty miles from Cambridge. The story of Paul Revere is told by the landlord, whose portrait is thus drawn in the 'Prelude: ' But first the Landlord will I trace; A man of ancient pedigree, A Justice of the Peace was he, Known in all dbury as The Squire.' Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh, And in the parlor, full in view, His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed, Upon the wall in colors blazed ; He beareth gules upon his shield, A chevron argent in the field, With three wolf's-heads, and for the crest The scroll reads, By the name of Howe.' 60 Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 70 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; 1 The last story in Tales of a Wayside Inn, First Series, and the only one of those 'tales' which was almost wholly original with Longfellow. There is a slight foundation for it, in the history of the town of Killingworth in Connecticut. The Cambridge Edition of Longfellow quotes a letter of Mr. Henry Hull, who, writing from personal recollection, says: The men of the northern part of the town did yearly in the spring choose two leaders, and then the two sides were formed: the side that got beaten should pay the bills. Their special game was the hawk, the owl, the crow, the blackbird, and any other bird supposed to be mischievous to the corn. Some years each side would bring them in by the bushel. This was followed up for only a few years, for the birds began to grow scarce.' In this poem, for once, Longfellow enters a field peculiarly belonging to Lowell: the half-humorous treatment of New England country life. Emerson considered it the best of the Tales, and called it (perhaps with a little exaggeration !), Serene, happy, and immortal as Chaucer." |