THE SOUND OF THE SEA.

Written July 27, 1874.

THE sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied

As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,

The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA.

THE sun is set; and in his latest beams
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
From the dim headlands many a light-house
gleams,

The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold,
O'erhead the banners of the night unfold;
The day hath passed into the land of dreams.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!

Forever and forever shalt thou be

To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.

THE TIDES.

Written September 4, 1874.

I SAW the long line of the vacant shore,
The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,
And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,
As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Then heard I, more distinctly than before,
The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,
And hurrying came on the defenceless land
The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.
All thought and feeling and desire, I said,

Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song
Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o'er

me

They swept again from their deep ocean bed,
And in a tumult of delight, and strong
As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.

A SHADOW.

I SAID unto myself, if I were dead,

What would befall these children? What

would be

Their fate, who now are looking up to me For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said, Would be a volume wherein I have read But the first chapters, and no longer see To read the rest of their dear history, So full of beauty and so full of dread.

Be comforted; the world is very old,

And generations pass, as they have passed, A troop of shadows moving with the sun; Thousands of times has the old tale been told; The world belongs to those who come the last, They will find hope and strength as we have done.

A NAMELESS GRAVE.

66

A newspaper description of a burying ground in Newport News, where, on the head-board of a soldier were the words, A Union Soldier mustered out,' was sent to Mr. Longfellow in 1864. He acknowledged its receipt in a letter in which he said: "In the writing of letters more perhaps than in anything else, Shakespeare's words are true, and

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
Unless the deed go with it.

For this reason, the touching incident you have sent me has not yet shaped itself poetically in my mind, as I hope it some day will. Meanwhile, I thank you most sincerely for bringing it to my notice, and I agree with you in thinking it very beautiful." Ten years passed before the poet used the incident, for he wrote the sonnet November 30, 1874.

"A SOLDIER of the Union mustered out,"
Is the inscription on an unknown grave
At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout

Of battle, when the loud artillery drave
Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave
And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,

When I remember thou hast given for me
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,
And I can give thee nothing in return.

SLEEP.

Written April 7, 1875.

LULL me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Eolian harpstring caught;

Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound; For I am weary, and am overwrought

With too much toil, with too much care distraught,

And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath! Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast Whereof the greater mystery is death!

THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE.

Written November 8, 1874.

TADDEO GADDI built me. I am old,

Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own

Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold
Beneath me as it struggles, I behold

Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown My kindred and companions. Me alone

It moveth not, but is by me controlled. I can remember when the Medici

Were driven from Florence; longer still ago The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf. Florence adorns me with her jewelry; And when I think that Michael Angelo Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.

IL PONTE VECCHIO DI FIRENZE.
Written November 26, 1874.

GADDI mi fece; il Ponte Vecchio sono;
Cinquecent' anni già sull' Arno pianto
Il piede, come il suo Michele Santo
Piantò sul draco. Mentre ch' io ragiono
Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono

Le rilucenti scaglie. Ha questi affranto
Due volte i miei maggior. Me solo intanto
Neppure muove, ed io non l'abbandono.
Io mi rammento quando fur cacciati
I Medici; pur quando Ghibellino
E Guelfo fecer pace mi rammento.
Fiorenza i suoi giojelli m' ha prestati;
E quando penso ch' Agnolo il divino
Su me posava insuperbir mi sento.

NATURE.

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted