The great design unfinished lies,
Our lives are incomplete.

But in the dark unknown
Perfect their circles seem,
Even as a bridge's arch of stone
Is rounded in the stream.

Alike are life and death,
When life in death survives,
And the uninterrupted breath
Inspires a thousand lives.

Were a star quenched on high,
For ages would its light,

Still travelling downward from the sky,

Shine on our mortal sight.

So when a great man dies,

For years beyond our ken,

The light he leaves behind him lies

Upon the paths of men.

TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE.

Written October 7, 1874, as introduction to the series of vol umes, Poems of Places, edited by Mr. Longfellow.

THE ceaseless rain is falling fast,

And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,

Points to the misty main.

It drives me in upon myself

And to the fireside gleams, To pleasant books that crowd my shelf, And still more pleasant dreams.

I read whatever bards have sung
Of lands beyond the sea,

And the bright days when I was young
Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again

The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,

Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.

I fear no more the dust and heat,
No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another's feet
O'er many a lengthening league.

Let others traverse sea and land,
And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
Reading these poets' rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies

Beneath each changing zone,

And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with mine own.

CADENABBIA.

LAKE OF COMO.

Written at Nahant, August 8, 1874. This and the two following poems are reminiscences of Mr. Longfellow's visit to Italy in 1868, 1869.

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks

The silence of the summer day,

As by the loveliest of all lakes

I while the idle hours away.

I pace the leafy colonnade,

Where level branches of the plane
Above me weave a roof of shade
Impervious to the sun and rain.

At times a sudden rush of air
Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead,
And gleams of sunshine toss and flare
Like torches down the path I tread.

By Somariva's garden gate

I make the marble stairs my seat,
And hear the water, as I wait,
Lapping the steps beneath my feet.

The undulation sinks and swells

Along the stony parapets,

And far away the floating bells
Tinkle upon the fisher's nets.

Silent and slow, by tower and town
The freighted barges come and go,
Their pendent shadows gliding down

By town and tower submerged below.

The hills sweep upward from the shore,
With villas scattered one by one
Upon their wooded spurs, and lower
Bellaggio blazing in the sun.

And dimly seen, a tangled mass

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, Stands, beckoning up the Stelvio Pass, Varenna with its white cascade.

I ask myself, Is this a dream?
Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme
And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision! Do not fade away:
Linger, until my heart shall take
Into itself the summer day,

And all the beauty of the lake;

Linger, until upon my brain

Is stamped an image of the scene; Then fade into the air again,

And be as if thou hadst not been.

MONTE CASSINO.

TERRA DI LAVORO.

Written October 30, 1874.

BEAUTIFUL valley! through whose verdant meads
Unheard the Garigliano glides along ;
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
Where medieval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface

Was dragged with contumely from his throne; Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade

Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith, When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light
Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown
Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night.

Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets

The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played,