There is no far or near,

There is neither there nor here,

There is neither soon nor late,
In that Chamber over the Gate,
Nor any long ago

To that cry of human woe,
O Absalom, my son !

From the ages that are past
The voice sounds like a blast,
Over seas that wreck and drown,
Over tumult of traffic and town;
And from ages yet to be
Come the echoes back to me,
O Absalom, my son!

Somewhere at every hour
The watchman on the tower
Looks forth, and sees the fleet
Approach of the hurrying feet
Of messengers, that bear

The tidings of despair.

O Absalom, my son !

He goes forth from the door,
Who shall return no more.
With him our joy departs;
The light goes out in our hearts;
In the Chamber over the Gate
We sit disconsolate.

O Absalom, my son !

That 't is a common grief
Bringeth but slight relief;
Ours is the bitterest loss,
Ours is the heaviest cross ;
And forever the cry will be
"Would God I had died for thee,
O Absalom, my son!"

FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.

TO THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE,

WHO PRESENTED TO ME, ON MY SEVENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1879, THIS CHAIR MADE FROM THE WOOD OF THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH'S CHESTNUT TREE.

Contributions for the purchase of the chair came from some seven hundred children of the public schools. The scheme was planned and carried out by Mr. Longfellow's friends and neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. E. N. Horsford. Mr. Longfellow had this poem, which he wrote on the same day, printed on a sheet, and was accustomed to give a copy to each child who visited him and sat in the chair.

Am I a king, that I should call my own

This splendid ebon throne?

Or by what reason, or what right divine,
Can I proclaim it mine?

Only, perhaps, by right divine of song
It may to me belong ;

Only because the spreading chestnut tree
Of old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime,
When in the summer-time

The affluent foliage of its branches made
A cavern of cool shade.

There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street,
Its blossoms white and sweet
Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive,
And murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout,
Tossed its great arms about,

The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,
Dropped to the ground beneath.

And now some fragments of its branches bare,
Shaped as a stately chair,

Have by my hearthstone found a home at last,
And whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his pride
Repel the ocean tide,

But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme
Roll back the tide of Time.

I see again, as one in vision sees,

The blossoms and the bees,

And hear the children's voices shout and call, And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow,
I hear the bellows blow,

And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat
The iron white with heat!

And thus, dear children, have ye made for me This day a jubilee,

And to my more than threescore years and ten Brought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind, And in it are enshrined

The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
The giver's loving thought.

Only your love and your'remembrance could
Give life to this dead wood,
And make these branches, leafless now so long,
Blossom again in song.

JUGURTHA.

Written March 1, 1879.

How cold are thy baths, Apollo !

Cried the African monarch, the splendid,

As down to his death in the hollow

Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,

Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo !

How cold are thy baths, Apollo !

Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended, As the vision, that lured him to follow, With the mist and the darkness blended, And the dream of his life was ended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

THE IRON PEN.

Written June 20, 1879. The pen was made of a bit of iron from the prison of Bonnivard at Chillon; the handle of wood from the Frigate Constitution, and bound with a circlet of gold, inset with three precious stones from Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine. It was a gift from Miss Helen Hamlin, of Bangor, Maine.

I THOUGHT this Pen would arise

From the casket where it lies

Of itself would arise and write

My thanks and my surprise.

When you gave it me under the pines,
I dreamed these gems from the mines
Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine
Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;

That this iron link from the chain

Of Bonnivard might retain

Some verse of the Poet who sang

Of the prisoner and his pain;

That this wood from the frigate's mast
Might write me a rhyme at last,