Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old song: "Two red roses he had on his cap

And another he bore at the point of his sword.”

Sudden and swift a whistling ball

Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill;
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room where some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him up to his saddle again,
And through the mire and the mist and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,

And laid him as if asleep on his bed;

And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp

Two white roses upon his cheeks,

And one, just over his heart, blood-red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat
Without a murmur, without a cry;
And a bell was tolled, in that far-off town,
For one who had passed from cross to crown,
And the neighbors wondered that she should die.

GIOTTO'S TOWER.

Written January 8, 1866.

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet
By self-devotion and by self-restraint,
Whose pleasure is to run without complaint
On unknown errands of the Paraclete,
Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,

Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint
Around the shining forehead of the saint,
And are in their completeness incomplete!
In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower,
The lily of Florence blossoming in stone, -
A vision, a delight, and a desire, —
The builder's perfect and centennial flower,
That in the night of ages bloomed alone,
But wanting still the glory of the spire.

TO-MORROW.

Written February 17, 1866.

'Tis late at night, and in the realm of sleep My little lambs are folded like the flocks; From room to room I hear the wakeful clocks Challenge the passing hour, like guards that keep

Their solitary watch on tower and steep;

Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks, And through the opening door that time unlocks Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep. To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,

Who cries to me: "Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest."
And I make answer: "I am satisfied;

I dare not ask; I know not what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide."

DIVINA COMMEDIA.

The six sonnets which follow were written during the progress of Mr. Longfellow's work in translating the Divina Commedia, and were published as poetical fly-leaves to the three parts. The first was written just after he had put the first two cantos of the Inferno into the hands of the printer. This, with the second, prefaced the Inferno. The third and fourth introduced the Purgatorio, and the fifth and sixth the Paradiso.

I.

Written March 29, 1864.

OFT have I seen at some cathedral door
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;

Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,

And leave my burden at this minster gate, Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time disconsolate

To inarticulate murmurs dies away,

While the eternal ages watch and wait.

II.

How strange the sculptures that adorn these tow

ers!

This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves

Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,

And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair,

What tenderness, what tears, what hate of

wrong,

What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This mediæval miracle of song!

III.

Written December 22, 1865.

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom

Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine! And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.

The air is filled with some unknown perfume;

The congregation of the dead make room

For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;

Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of

pine

The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. From the confessionals I hear arise

Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,

And lamentations from the crypts below; And then a voice celestial that begins

With the pathetic words, "Although your sins As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."

IV.

Written May 5, 1867.

With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago

Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoe the remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow-bring at last
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.

V.

Written January 16, 1866.

I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
Here martyred and hereafter glorified ;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays