You can hear him swing his heavy sledge Like a sexton ringing the village bell, And children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly He goes on Sunday to the church, It sounds to him like her mother's voice, He needs must think of her once more, And with his hard, rough hand he wipes Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, Thus at the flaming forge of life EXCELSIOR. THE shades of night were falling fast, Excelsior! His brow was sad; his eye beneath, The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior! In happy homes he saw the light And from his lips escaped a groan, Excelsior! Try not the Pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior! "O stay," the maiden said, "and rest Excelsior! "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Excelsior! At break of day, as heavenward Excelsior! A traveller, by the faithful hound, Excelsior! There in the twilight cold and gray, THE BELFRY OF BRUGES. In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town. As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood, And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray, widowhood. Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay. At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there, Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghostlike, into air. Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower. From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high; And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky. Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes, Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir; And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar. Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain; They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again; All the Foresters of Flanders, -mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer, Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre. I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old; Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold; Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies; Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease. I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground; I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound; And the lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen, And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between. I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold, Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold; Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west, Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest. And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote; And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat; Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand, "I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!" |