THE LIGHTHOUSE

THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
And on its outer point, some miles away,
The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,

A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides,

Upheaving, break unheard along its base, A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides

In the white lip and tremor of the face.

And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright, Through the deep purple of the twilight air,

Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light With strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!

Not one alone; from each projecting cape And perilous reef along the ocean's verge, Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,

Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge.

Like the great giant Christopher it stands

Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, Wading far out among the rocks and sands, The night-o'ertaken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return, Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,

And ever joyful, as they see it burn,

They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails

Gleam for a moment only in the blaze, And eager faces, as the light unveils, Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child,

On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;

And when, returning from adventures wild, He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same

Year after year, through all the silent night

Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame, Shines on that inextinguishable light!

DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD "September 29, 1846. A delicious drive with F. through Malden and Lynn to Marblehead, to visit E. W. at the Devereux Farm by the sea-side. Drove across the beautiful sand. What a delicious scene! The ocean in the sunshine changing from the silvery hue of the thin waves upon the beach, through the lighter and the deeper green, to a rich purple in the horizon. We recalled the times past, and the days when we were at Nahant. The Devereux Farm is by the sea, some miles from Lynn. An old-fashioned farm-house, with low rooms, and narrow windows rattling in the sea-breeze." From this visit sprang the poem that follows. In a letter in 1879 to a correspondent who had raised a matter-of-fact objection, Mr. Longfellow readily admitted that the harbor and lighthouse, which he visited the same day, could not be seen from the windows of the farm-house.

WE sat within the farm-house old,

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold An easy entrance, night and day.

The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

BY THE FIRESIDE

RESIGNATION

Written in the autumn of 1848, after the death of his little daughter Fanny. There is a passage in the poet's diary, under date of November 12, in which he says: "I feel very sad to-day. I miss very much my dear little Fanny. An inappeasable longing to see her comes over me at times, which I can hardly control."

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there !
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, By guardian angels led,

yearned !

They were indeed too much akin,

tion,

She lives, whom we call dead.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where Gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time, Broken stairways, where the feet Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.

SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS

A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime

Of Arab deserts brought,

Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, The minister of Thought.

How many weary centuries has it been
About those deserts blown!

How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite
Trampled and passed it o'er,

When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight
His favorite son they bore.

Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,
Crushed it beneath their tread,
Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air
Scattered it as they sped;

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth
Held close in her caress,
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and
faith

Illumed the wilderness;