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Voices Of The Night - And Other Poems-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · The Song of Hiawatha

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  Speaker 1: Section one of Voices of the Night and Other Poems
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  Speaker 1: by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This is a LibriVox audiobook. All
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit us at LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: This recording by Michel Frye Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Section one
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  Speaker 1: forward by the editors The Life of Longfellow. Those scientists
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  Speaker 1: who hold that genius is a morbid distillation from a
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  Speaker 1: tainted ancestry would be puzzled to account for longfellows undeniable genius.
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  Speaker 1: He was descended from two Yorkshire families whose natural healthiness
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  Speaker 1: of mind and body had been developing for several generations
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  Speaker 1: in the bracing air of New England. The Longfellows, his
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  Speaker 1: father's family, were a sturdy race who had always done
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  Speaker 1: their duty without inquiring into their metaphysical motive for doing it,
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  Speaker 1: and his mother's family, the Wadsworths, traced their descent to
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  Speaker 1: John Alden as wholesome an old Puritan warrior, as could
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  Speaker 1: well be found Henry Wadsworth's Longfellow. The poet was born
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  Speaker 1: at Portland, Maine, February twenty seventh, eighteen o seven. Like
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  Speaker 1: Emerson and Hawthorne, he was a quiet boy, fond of
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  Speaker 1: books and averse to taking part in the sports of
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  Speaker 1: his schoolfellows. His nerves shrank from all loud noises. There
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  Speaker 1: is a tradition of his having begged a servant on
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  Speaker 1: a glorious fourth of July to put cotton in his
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  Speaker 1: ears to deaden the roar of the cannon, and in
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  Speaker 1: later life one of his book plates bore the motto
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  Speaker 1: nan ne clamore said amour. At the age of fifteen,
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  Speaker 1: this shy, studious lad was sent to Bowden College at Brunswick, Maine,
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  Speaker 1: after Portland Academy had taught him all it knew. He
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  Speaker 1: came prepared to make the most of his opportunities, and
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  Speaker 1: after four years of hard work, graduated with distinction and
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  Speaker 1: with the promise of a professorship. After a year of
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  Speaker 1: travel had broadened his mental horizon, the next summer found
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  Speaker 1: Longfellow at Paris. With all Europe before him. He wandered
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  Speaker 1: through England, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Spain, everywhere, studying
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  Speaker 1: the languages and absorbing the rich associations of foreign places.
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  Speaker 1: His impressions of what he saw were in later years
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  Speaker 1: embodied in the prose works Hut from Mur and Hyperion.
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  Speaker 1: On his return, he at once assumed the duties of
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  Speaker 1: his professorship, finding little time for literature. In eighteen thirty one,
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  Speaker 1: he married an acquaintance of former years, Mary Storer Poehler,
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  Speaker 1: with whom he lived most happily until her premature death
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty five. In eighteen thirty four, a pleasant
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  Speaker 1: surprise came in the shape of an offer of the
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  Speaker 1: Chair of Modern Languages at Harvard, an offer which Longfellow
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  Speaker 1: was only too glad to accept. The new professor's official
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  Speaker 1: duties were light, and he had leisure for the literary
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  Speaker 1: pursuits which had ever been his delight. Hyperion, a romance
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  Speaker 1: in two volumes, and The Voices of the Night, a
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  Speaker 1: volume of poems containing The Reaper and the Flowers and
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  Speaker 1: The Psalm of Life, were published in eighteen thirty nine.
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  Speaker 1: Two years later appeared Ballads and other poems containing The
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  Speaker 1: Wreck of the Hesperus, The Village Blacksmith and Excelsior, and
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  Speaker 1: in the following year poems on slavery. This quiet life
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  Speaker 1: of work was interrupted in eighteen forty two by a
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  Speaker 1: visit to Dickens in London, but speedily resumed. In July
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty three, Longfellow married his second wife, a Miss Appleton,
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  Speaker 1: whose acquaintance he had made for the first time during
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  Speaker 1: his Swiss tour. Longfellow's ambition was to be the national
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  Speaker 1: poet of America, an ambition to which he was spurred
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  Speaker 1: on by Margaret Fuller, probably the most intellectual woman of
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  Speaker 1: the time in America. She called his poems exotic flowers
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  Speaker 1: with no smell of American soil about them. The outcome
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  Speaker 1: of this criticism was the writing of Evangeline, followed later
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  Speaker 1: by Hiawatha and Miles Standish, all refreshingly American in flavor. Hiawatha,
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  Speaker 1: a poem founded on Indian myths, is cast in the
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  Speaker 1: form of the eddas the ancient epics of Finland, a
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  Speaker 1: form with which Longfellow had become familiar in his studies
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  Speaker 1: of the Scandinavian languages. The Courtship of Myles Standish pictures
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  Speaker 1: the deeds and sufferings of the early Plymouth colony, a
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  Speaker 1: recital enlivened only by the description of the courting of
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  Speaker 1: Priscilla by proxy. It is not to be understood that
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  Speaker 1: Longfellow's fame rested on these American poems alone. He had
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  Speaker 1: already written a quantity of poetry which had established his
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  Speaker 1: reputation as a poet, but it was on these that
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  Speaker 1: he based his claim to be considered the national poet
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  Speaker 1: of America. In eighteen fifty four, after about eighteen years
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  Speaker 1: of academic work, Longfellow felt warranted in resigning his Harvard
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  Speaker 1: professorship to be free for purely literary pursuits. His home
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  Speaker 1: at Cambridge was the large Craigie House, which could boast
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  Speaker 1: of having once been the headquarters of Washington. Here, surrounded
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  Speaker 1: by a brilliant circle of friends, he lived in all
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  Speaker 1: the flush of a happy, successful life until eighteen sixty one,
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  Speaker 1: that fatal year, when his piece was invaded by a
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  Speaker 1: frightful calamity Missus. Longfellow, while playing with her children, set
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  Speaker 1: fire to her dress and was mortally injured by the flames.
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  Speaker 1: The poet never recovered from the shock of this bereavement,
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  Speaker 1: although he continued his work with unabated vigor until the
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  Speaker 1: time of his death in March eighteen eighty two. After Tennyson,
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  Speaker 1: Longfellow has been the most popular poet of his day.
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  Speaker 1: Some critics have said that had Tennyson never written the
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  Speaker 1: Idols or in Memoriam, his inferiority to Longfellow would have
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  Speaker 1: been manifest. But the power displayed in these high realms
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  Speaker 1: of poetry was quite beyond Longfellow's reach. His range is domestic.
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  Speaker 1: He lacks the power of depicting deep passion or of
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  Speaker 1: roe being purely imaginative subjects with ideal grace and color.
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  Speaker 1: The forces necessary to the execution of an heroic poem
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  Speaker 1: are not his. But on the other hand, in such
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  Speaker 1: a description of quiet love and devoted patients as he
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  Speaker 1: gives us in Evangeline, Longfellow may be ranked with the
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  Speaker 1: greatest of poets. Here's a chronological list of the principal
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  Speaker 1: works of Longfellow. Copelas de Manrique eighteen thirty three, Utremur
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five, Hyperion eighteen thirty nine, Voices of the
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  Speaker 1: Night eighteen thirty nine, Ballads and Other Poems eighteen forty one,
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  Speaker 1: Poems on Slavery eighteen forty two, Spanish Student eighteen forty three,
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  Speaker 1: Poets and Poetry of Europe eighteen forty five, Belfry of
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  Speaker 1: Bruges eighteen forty six, Evangeline eighteen forty seven, Cavanagh eighteen
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  Speaker 1: forty nine, Seaside and the Fireside eighteen fifty, Golden Legend
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one, Hiawatha eighteen fifty five, Miles Standish eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty eight, Tales of a wayside in eighteen sixty three,
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  Speaker 1: Flower de Luce eighteen sixty seven, Divine Comedy of Don
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  Speaker 1: k Alligieri eighteen sixty seven through seventy New England Tragedies
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight, Divine Tragedy eighteen seventy one, Three Books
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  Speaker 1: of Song eighteen seventy two, Christis eighteen seventy two, after
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  Speaker 1: Math eighteen seventy three, Hanging of the Crane eighteen seventy four,
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  Speaker 1: Mask of Pandora eighteen seventy five, Keramos eighteen seventy eight,
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  Speaker 1: Ultimathool eighteen eighty In the Harbor, Ultimathoule Part two eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty two, and Michael Angelo eighteen eighty four. End of
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  Speaker 1: Section one, Section two of Voices of the Night and
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  Speaker 1: Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Critical opinions this first critique is
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  Speaker 1: written by George William Kurtis, child of New England and
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  Speaker 1: trained by her best influences of a temperament singularly sweet
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  Speaker 1: and serene, and with the sturdy rectitude of his race,
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  Speaker 1: refined and softened by wide contact with other lands and
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  Speaker 1: many men born in prosperity, accomplished in all literatures, and
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  Speaker 1: himself a literary artist of consummate elegance. He was the
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  Speaker 1: fine flower of the Puritan stock under its changed modern conditions,
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  Speaker 1: out of strength had come forth sweetness. The grim iconoclast Humming,
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  Speaker 1: a surly hymn had issued in the Christian gentleman Captain
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  Speaker 1: Myles Standish, had risen into Sir Philip Sidney. The austere
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  Speaker 1: morality that relentlessly ruled the elder New England reappeared in
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  Speaker 1: the genius of this singer, in the most gracious and
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  Speaker 1: captivating form. The foundations of our distinctive literature were largely
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  Speaker 1: laid in New England, and they rest upon morality. Literary
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  Speaker 1: New England had never a trace of literary bohemia. The
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  Speaker 1: most illustrious group and the earliest of American authors and
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  Speaker 1: scholars and literary men, the Boston and Cambridge group, of
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  Speaker 1: the last generation, Channing, the Two Danas, Sparks, Everett, Vancroft, Tickner, Prescott, Norton, Ripley, Palfrey, Emerson, Parker, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Wittier,
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  Speaker 1: Agassi's Lowell Motley have been sober and industrious citizens of
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  Speaker 1: whom Judge Sewell would have approved. Their lives, as well
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  Speaker 1: as their works have ennobled literature. They have illustrated the
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  Speaker 1: moral sanity of genius. Longfellow shares this trait with them all.
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  Speaker 1: It is the moral purity of his verse which at
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  Speaker 1: once charms the heart, and in his first most famous poem,
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  Speaker 1: the Psalm of Life, is the direct inculcation of a
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  Speaker 1: moral purpose. Those who insist that literary art, like all
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  Speaker 1: other art, should not concern itself positively with morality, must
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  Speaker 1: reflect that the heart of this age has been touched
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  Speaker 1: as truly by Longfellow, however differently as that of any
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  Speaker 1: time by its master poet. This indeed is his peculiar
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  Speaker 1: distinction among the great poetic names of the century in
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  Speaker 1: English literature. Burns in a general way is the poet
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  Speaker 1: of love, Wordsworth of lofty contemplation of nature, Byron of passion,
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  Speaker 1: Shelley of aspiration, Keats of romance, Scot of heroic legend,
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  Speaker 1: and not less and quite as distinctively Longfellow of the
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  Speaker 1: domestic affections. He is the poet of the household, of
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  Speaker 1: the fireside, of the universal home feeling, the infinite tenderness
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  Speaker 1: and patience, the pathos, and the beauty of daily life,
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  Speaker 1: of familiar emotion and the common scene. These are the
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  Speaker 1: significance of that verse whose beautiful and simple melody, softly
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  Speaker 1: murmuring for more than forty years, made the singer the
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  Speaker 1: most widely beloved of living men. And now we hear
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  Speaker 1: from William Michael Rossetti. He is in a high sense
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  Speaker 1: a literary man, and next a literary artist, and thirdly
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  Speaker 1: a literary artist in the domain of poetry. It would
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  Speaker 1: not be true to say that his art is of
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  Speaker 1: the intensest kind, our most magical potency, but it is
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  Speaker 1: art and imbuse. Whatever he performs, in so far as
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  Speaker 1: a literary artist in poetry is a poet, Longfellow is
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  Speaker 1: a poet, and should, to the silencing of all debates
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  Speaker 1: and demurrors, be freely confessed and handsomely installed. As such.
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  Speaker 1: How far he is a poet, in a further sense
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  Speaker 1: than this remains to be determined. Having thus summarily considered
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  Speaker 1: the actual quality of the work as derived from the
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  Speaker 1: endowments of the worker, I next proceed to the grounds
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  Speaker 1: upon which the vast popularity of the poems has rested.
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  Speaker 1: One main and in itself all sufficient ground has just
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  Speaker 1: been stated that the sort of intelligence of which Longfellow
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  Speaker 1: is so conspicuous an example, includes pre eminently a great
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  Speaker 1: susceptibility to the spirit of the age. The man who
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  Speaker 1: meets the spirit of the age half way will be
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  Speaker 1: met half way by that will be adopted as a
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  Speaker 1: favorite child and warmly reposited in the heart. Such has
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  Speaker 1: been the case with Longfellow in sentiment, in perception, in culture,
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  Speaker 1: in selection, in utterance. He represents with adequate and even influential,
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  Speaker 1: but not overwhelming force, the tendencies and adaptabilities of the time.
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  Speaker 1: He is a good type of the better most, not
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  Speaker 1: the exceptionally very best minds of the central or later
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  Speaker 1: Central period of the nineteenth century, And having the gift
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  Speaker 1: of persuasive speech and accomplished art, he can enlist the
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  Speaker 1: sympathies of readers who approach his own level of intelligence,
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  Speaker 1: and can dominate a numberless multitude of those who belong
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  Speaker 1: to lower planes, but who share nonetheless his own general
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  Speaker 1: conceptions and aspirations. Evangeline, whatever may be its shortcomings and blemishes,
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  Speaker 1: takes so powerful a hold of the feelings that the
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  Speaker 1: fate which would at last merge it into oblivion could
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  Speaker 1: only be a very hard and even a perverse one
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  Speaker 1: who that has read it has ever forgotten it, or
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  Speaker 1: in whose memory does it rest as other than a
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  Speaker 1: long drawn sweetness and sadness that has become a portion
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  Speaker 1: and a purifying portion of the experiences of the heart.
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  Speaker 1: This by the London Saturday Review. Mister Longfellow was easily
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  Speaker 1: first among his own countrymen as a poet, and in
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  Speaker 1: certain directions as a prose writer. But he was also
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  Speaker 1: a good deal more than this. There has been a
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  Speaker 1: tendency to doubt whether he was entitled to a place
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  Speaker 1: in the first rank of poets, and the doubt, although
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  Speaker 1: we are not disposed to think it well founded, is
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  Speaker 1: perhaps intelligible. Some of the qualities which gave his verse
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  Speaker 1: its charm and its very wide popularity and influence, also
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  Speaker 1: worked not to perplex For the essence of his style
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  Speaker 1: was simplicity, but perhaps to vex the critical mind. There
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  Speaker 1: is no need to dwell now upon various pieces of
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  Speaker 1: verse by mister Longfellow, which no doubt owed much of
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  Speaker 1: their fame to qualities that were less prominent in some
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  Speaker 1: of his productions, which perhaps were not unnaturally less popular.
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  Speaker 1: But it may be said as a general rule that
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  Speaker 1: when Longfellow was commonplace in sentiment, he was far from
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  Speaker 1: commonplace in expression. His verse was full of grace, and
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  Speaker 1: if one may use the word in disconnection of tact,
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  Speaker 1: and it cannot perhaps be said to have been want
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  Speaker 1: of tact that prevented him from correcting the one odd
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  Speaker 1: blunder that he made after it had gone forth to
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  Speaker 1: the world and become somewhat surprisingly popular. That he could be,
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  Speaker 1: and generally was much in reverse of commonplace, will hardly
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  Speaker 1: be denied by anyone who has made a real study
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  Speaker 1: of his work. He has a keen observation, a vivid fancy,
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  Speaker 1: a scholarlike touch, a not too common gentileese, and a
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  Speaker 1: seemingly easy command of rhyme and rhythm. When the qualities
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  Speaker 1: which we have touched upon are united in a man
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  Speaker 1: who has come before the world as a poet, evidently
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  Speaker 1: in consequence of the promptings of his nature, and not
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  Speaker 1: of malice, prepense and with carefully devised affectation. It seems
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  Speaker 1: somewhat rash to deny him the high place which the
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  Speaker 1: great bulk of his admirers would assign to him, because
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  Speaker 1: he has perhaps too frequently lapsed into thought, if not interdiction,
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  Speaker 1: which may seem unworthy of such a writer at his best.
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  Speaker 1: Nor perhaps is it fair in disregard to leave out
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  Speaker 1: of account that Longfellow began his poetic career as the poet,
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  Speaker 1: the poet par excellence of a country which had its
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  Speaker 1: literature to make. His position as a spokesman in poetry
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  Speaker 1: of a young country had its advantages and its drawbacks.
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  Speaker 1: He was more free from the disadvantages of critical severity
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  Speaker 1: and opposition than an English writer could well have been.
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  Speaker 1: But such a freedom has its dangers, and to this
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  Speaker 1: it might not be too fanciful to trace the lapses
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  Speaker 1: of which some mention has been made. That it was
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  Speaker 1: to these lapses that he owed a considerable portion of
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  Speaker 1: his influence with the mass of the reading or devouring
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  Speaker 1: public in England was not his fault, and this fact
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  Speaker 1: should not, we think, be allowed to obscure in any
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  Speaker 1: way the exceptionally fine qualities which he undoubtedly possessed and cultivated,
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  Speaker 1: and now from the London Athenaeum. The essence of Longfellow's
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  Speaker 1: writings might be defined thus domestic morals with a romantic coloring,
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  Speaker 1: a warm glow of sentiment, and a full measure of culture.
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  Speaker 1: The morals are partly religious, hardly at all sectarian, pure, sincere,
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  Speaker 1: and healthy. The romance is sufficiently genuine, yet a trifle factitious,
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  Speaker 1: nicely apprehended rather than intense. The sentiment is hard to felt,
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  Speaker 1: but a little ordinary by the very fact of its
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  Speaker 1: being ordinary, all the more widely and fully responded to,
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  Speaker 1: at times with a somewhat false ring, or at least
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  Speaker 1: an obvious, shallowness, right minded sentiment, which the author perceives
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  Speaker 1: to be creditable to himself, and which he aims, as
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  Speaker 1: if by an earnest and penetrated tone of voice, to
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  Speaker 1: make impressive to his reader. The culture is broad and general,
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  Speaker 1: not that of a bookworm or student, but of a
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  Speaker 1: receptive and communicative mind, of average grasp and average sympathies.
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  Speaker 1: Longfellow had much clearness and persuasiveness, some force, and a
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  Speaker 1: great aptitude for improving the occasion. But he had not
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  Speaker 1: that imaginative strength, that spacious vision, that depth of personal individuality,
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  Speaker 1: which impress somewhat painfully at first, but which alone supply
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  Speaker 1: in the long run the great startling and rousing forces
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  Speaker 1: that possess a permanent influence. Now this by E. P. Whipple.
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  Speaker 1: Longfellow has a perfect command of that expression which results
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  Speaker 1: from restraining rather than cultivating fluency, and his manner is
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  Speaker 1: adapted to his theme. He rarely, if ever, mistakes emotions
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  Speaker 1: for conceptions. His words are often pictures of his thought.
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  Speaker 1: He selects, with great delicacy and precision, the exact phrase
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  Speaker 1: which best expresses or suggests his idea. He colors his
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  Speaker 1: style with the skill of a painter. The warm, flush
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  Speaker 1: and bright tints, as well as the most evanescent hues
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  Speaker 1: of language. He uses with admirable discretion in that higher
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  Speaker 1: department of his art, that of so combining his words
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  Speaker 1: and images that they make music to the soul as
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  Speaker 1: well as to the ear, and convey not only his
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  Speaker 1: feelings and thoughts, but also the very tone and condition
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  Speaker 1: of the soul in which they have being. He likewise
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  Speaker 1: excels his imagination in the sphere of its activity is
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  Speaker 1: almost perfect in its power to shape invisible forms or
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  Speaker 1: to suggest by cunning verbal combinations the feeling are thought
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  Speaker 1: he desires to express, but it lacks the strength and
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  Speaker 1: daring and the wide sweep which characterize the imagination of
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  Speaker 1: such poets as Shelley. He has little of the unrest
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  Speaker 1: and frenzy of the Bard. We know in reading him
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  Speaker 1: that he will never miss his mark, that he will
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  Speaker 1: risk nothing, that he will aim to do only that
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  Speaker 1: which he feels he can do well. An air of repose,
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  Speaker 1: of quiet power is around his compositions. He rarely loses
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  Speaker 1: sight of common interests and sympathies. He displays none of
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  Speaker 1: the stinging, earnestness, the vehement sensibility, the gusts of passion
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  Speaker 1: which characterize poets of the impulsive class. His spiritualism is
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  Speaker 1: not seen in wild struggles. After an ineffable something for
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  Speaker 1: which earth can afford but imperfect symbols, and of which
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  Speaker 1: even abstract words can suggest little knowledge, he appears perfectly
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  Speaker 1: satisfied with his work. Like his own village Blacksmith. He
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  Speaker 1: retires every night with the feeling that something has been attempted,
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  Speaker 1: that something has been done. His sense of beauty, though
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  Speaker 1: uncommonly vivid, is not the highest of which the mind
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  Speaker 1: is capable. He has little perception of its mysterious spirit,
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  Speaker 1: of that beauty of which all physical loveliness is but
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  Speaker 1: a shadow which awes and thrills the soul into which
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  Speaker 1: it enters, and lifts the imagination into regions to which
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  Speaker 1: the heaven of heavens is but a veil. His mind
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  Speaker 1: never appears oppressed, nor his sight dimmed by its exceeding glory.
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  Speaker 1: He feels and loves and creates what is beautiful, but
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  Speaker 1: he hemns no reverence. He pays no adoration to the
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  Speaker 1: spirit of beauty. He would never exclaim with Shelley, Oh
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: awful loveliness. This ends Section two read for you by
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Michel Fry that enridged Louisiana. Section three of Voices of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the Night and other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Voices
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of the Night pray pleasant. It was when woods were
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: green and winds were soft and low, to lie amid
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: some silver and scene, where the long drooping boughs, between
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: shadows dark and sunlight sheen alternate come and go, or
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: where the denser grove receives no sunlight from above, but
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the dark foliage into weaves in one unbroken roof of leaves,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: underneath whose sloping eaves the shadows hardly move, beneath some
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: patriarchal tree. I lay upon the ground, his hoary arms uplifted.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: He and all the broad leaves over me clapped their
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: little hands in glee with one continuous sound, a slumbrous sound,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: a sound that brings the feelings of a dream, as
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: of innumerable wings, as when a bell no longer swings
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: faint the hollow murmur rings, or meadow, lake and stream,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and dreams of that which cannot die. Bright visions came
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to me as lapt in thought. I used to lie
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and gaze into the summer sky, where the sailing clouds
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: went by like ships upon the sea. Dreams that the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: soul of youth engage ere fancy has been quelled. Old
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: legends of the Monkish page, traditions of the saint and sage,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: tales that have the rhyme of age, and chronicles of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: eld and loving. Still these quaint old themes. Even in
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the city's throng, I feel the freshness of the streams
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that crossed by shades and sunny gleams water, the green
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: land of dreams, the holy land of song. Therefore at Pentecost,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: which brings the spring, clothed like a bride, when nestling
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: buds unfold their wings, and bishop's caps have golden rings.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Musing upon many things, I sought the woodlands wide, the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: green trees whispered low and mild. It was a sound
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of joy. They were my playmates when a child, and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: rocked me in their arms, so wild still they looked
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: at me and smiled as if I were a boy,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and ever whispered mild and low, Come be a child
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: once more, and waved their long arms to and fro,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and beckoned solemnly and slow. Oh, I could not choose
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: but go into the woodland's hoar, into the blithe and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: breathing air, into the solemn wood, solemn and silent. Everywhere Nature,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: with folded hands, seemed there, kneeling at her evening prayer,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like one in prayer. I stood before me rose an
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: avenue of tall and sombrous pines. Abroad, their fin like
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: branches grew, and where the sunshine darted through, spread a vapor,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: soft and blue in long and sloping lines. And falling
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: on my weary brain like a fan dust falling shower.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: The dreams of youth came back again, low lispings of
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the summer rain, dropping on the ripened grain, as once
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: upon the flower visions of childhood. Stay, Oh, stay ye
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: were so sweet and wild, and distant voices seemed to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: say it cannot be. They pass away. Other themes demand
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: thy lay, thou art no more a child. The land
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of song within thee lies watered by living springs, the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: lives of fancies. Sleepless eyes are gates unto that paradise.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Holy thoughts, like stars arise, Its clouds are angels wings.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Learn that henceforth thy song shall be. Not mountains kept
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: with snow, nor forests sounding like the sea, nor rivers
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: flowing carelessly. Where the woodlands bend to sea the bending
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: heavens below. There is a forest where the din of
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: iron branches sounds. A mighty river roars between, and whosoever
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: looks therein sees the heavens all black with sin, sees
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: not its depths nor bounds athwart the swinging branches cast
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: soft rays of sunshine. Poor then comes the fearful, wintry
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: blest our hopes, like withered leaves fall fast, pallid lips
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: say it is past, we can return no more. Look
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: then into thine heart and write yes into life's deep stream.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: All forms of sorrow and delight, all solemn voices of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the night that can soothe thee or affright. Be these
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: henceforth thy theme. End of section three. This LibriVox recording
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read for you by Michel
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Frye Baton Rouge Louisiana. Section four of Voices of the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Night and other poems by Henry Wadsworth longfellow him to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the Knight. This section begins with a quotation from Orestes
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: by Euripides, translated from the Greek by R. Potter, Awful queen,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: whose gentle power brings sweet oblivion of our woes, and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: in the calm and gentle hour distills the blessings of repose. Come,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: awful night, come from the gloom of erebus, profound and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: spread thy sable, tinctured wings around speed to this royal house,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: thy flight for pale eyed grief and wild affright, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: all the horrors of despair here pour their rage and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: threaten ruin here footnote Orestes in classical mythology, was a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. He was pursued by the furies,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: who drove him as a punishment for the murder of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: his mother. In the tragedy, Orestes calls on sleep as
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: his greatest boon. This is followed by a quotation from
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the Iliad, most welcome, earnestly prayed for night, and now
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: for longfellows, hymn to the Night. I heard the trailing
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: garments of the night sweep through her marble halls. I
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: saw her sable skirts, saw fringed with light from the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: celestial walls. I felt her presence, by its spell of
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: might stoop or me from above, the calm, majestic presence
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of the night, as of the one I love. I
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, the manifold soft
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: charms that fill the haunted chambers of the night, like
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: some old poet's rhymes. From the cool cisterns of the
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: mid night, ere my spirit drank repose. The fountain of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: perpetual peace flows there from those deep cisterns, flows O
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: holy night from thee I learn to bear what man
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: has borne before Thou last, thy finger on the lips
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of care, and they complain no more. Peace, peace orestes
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like I breathe. This prayer descend with broad winged flight,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the welcome the thrice prayed for the most fair, the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: best beloved night. End of section four. This LibriVox recording
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain Section five of Voices of
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the Night and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Psalm of life. What the heart of the young man
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: said to the psalmist tell me not in mournful numbers,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: life is but an empty dream, for the soul is dead,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: that slumbers and things are not what they seem. Life
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: is real, Life is earnest, and the grave is not
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: its goal. Dost thou art to dust? Returnest? Was not
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment and not sorrow is
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: our destined end or way, but to act that each
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to morrow find us farther than to day. Art is long,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and time is fleeting. And our hearts, though stout and brave,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: still like muffled drums or beating funeral marches to the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: grave in the world's broad field of battle, in the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: bivouac of life. Be not like dumb driven cattle, be
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: a hero in the strife. Trust no future, howe'er pleasant.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Let the dead past bury its dead, act act in
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the living, present, heart within, and God or head. Lives
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: of great men all remind us we can make our
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: lives sublime. And departing leave behind us footsteps on the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: sands of time, footsteps that perhaps another sailing or life's
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: solemn main A forlorn and shipwrecked brother seeing shall take
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: heart again. Let us then be up and doing with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a heart for any fate still achieving, still pursuing, Learn
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: to labor and to wait. A couple of footnotes to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: this poem provided by the editor, Dust to art and
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: dust returnest is from Genesis three nineteen and as to
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: footsteps on the sand. In later editions, Longfellow changed this
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to footprints. This ends section five. This LibriVox recording is
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read for you by Michel Frye
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Section six of Voices of the Night
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and Other Porns by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Reaper and
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the Flowers. There is a reaper whose name is Death,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and with his sickle keen he reaps the bearded grain
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: at a breath, and the flowers that grow between. Shall
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I have naught that his fair saith, He have naught
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: but the bearded grain. Though the breath of these flowers
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: is sweet to me, I will give them all back again.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes. He kissed
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: their drooping leaves. It was for the Lord of Paradise
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: he bound them in his sheaves. My lord has need
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of these flower Its gay, the Reaper said, and smiled.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Dear tokens of the earth are they where he was
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: once a child. They shall all bloom in fields of light,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: transplanted by my care and saints upon their garments white
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: these sacred blossoms were. And the mother gave in tears
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: and pain the flowers she most did love. She knew
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: she should find them all again in the fields of
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: light above. Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath. The
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Reaper came that day twas an angel visited the green
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: earth and took the flowers away, and of section six
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: The Reaper and the Flowers. This LibriVox recording is in
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read for you by Michel Fry Beatonridge,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Louisiana in February two thousand nineteen, Section seven of Voices
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: of the Night and Other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: The light of stars. The night is come, but not
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: too soon. And sinking silently, I'll silently the little moon
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: drops down behind the sky. There is no light in
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Earth or heaven but the cold light of stars. And
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the first watch of night is given to the red
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? The
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: star of love and dreams? Oh? No? From that blue
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: tent above a hero's armor, gleams and earnest thoughts within
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: me rise When I behold afar suspended in the evening skies,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the shield of that red star, O star of strength.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I see thee stand and smile upon my pain. Thou
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: beckonest with thy mailed hand, and I am strong again.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Within my breast there is no light but the cold
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: light of stars. I give the first watch of the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: night to the red planet Mars, the star of the unconquered.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Will he rises in my breast, serene and resolute and
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: still and calm and self possessed. And thou too, whoso
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: ere thou art, that readest this brief psalm, as one
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: by one thy hopes depart, be resolute and calm, Oh,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: know ere long know how sublime a thing it is
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: to suffer and be strong. End of section seven, The
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Light of Stars. This LibriVox recording is in the public
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: domain Section eight of Voices of the Night and Other
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Footsteps of Angels. When the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: hours of day are numbered and the voices of the
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: night wake, the better soul that slumbered to a holy
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: calm delight ere. The evening lamps are light, and like phantoms,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: grim and tall shadows from the fitful firelight dance upon
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the parlor wall. Then the forms of the departed enter
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: at the open door. The beloved, duty hearted come to
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: visit me once more. He the young and strong, who
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: cherished noble longings for the strife by the roadside, fell
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: and perished, weary with the march of life. They, the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: holy ones and weakly, who the cross of suffering bore,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: folded their pale hands, so meekly spake with us on
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: earth no more. And with them the being beauteous, who,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: unto my youth, was given more than all things else
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to love me, and is now a saint in heaven.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: With the slow and noiseless footstep comes that messenger divine
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: takes the vacant chair beside me, lays her gentle hand
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: in mine, and she sits and gazes at me with
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: those deep and tender eyes, like the stars so still
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: and saint like looking downward from the skies. Uttered. Not
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: yet comprehended is the spirit's voiceless prayer, soft rebukes in
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: blessings ended, breathing from her lips of air, Oh thou
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: if I but remember only such as these have lived
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: and died. Footnote. Longfellow's line the being beauteous was an
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: allusion to his first wife, end of section eight Footsteps
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of Angels. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Section nine of Voices of the Night and Other Poems
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: by Henry Wadsworth Lifefellow. Flowers spake full well in language
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: quaint and olden one who dwelleth by the castled rhine
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: when he called the flowers so blue, and the golden
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: stars that in Earth's from immense do shine stars. They
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: are wherein we read our history as astrologers and seers
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of Eld, yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, like
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the burning stars which they beheld, wondrous truths and manifold
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: as wondrous God hath written in those stars above, but
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: not less in the bright flowerets under us stands the
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: revelation of His love, bright and glorious. Is that revelation
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: written all over this great world of ours, making evident
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: our own creation in these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: And the poet, faithful and foreseeing sees alike in stars
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: and flowers, a part of the self same universal being,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: in the sunlight, shining blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Tremulous leaves with soft and silver lining buds that open
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: only to decay, brilliant hopes, all woven and gorgeous tissues
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: flaunting gaily in the golden light, large desires with most
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: uncertain issues, tender wishes blossoming at night. These in flowers
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: and men are more than seeming workings. Are they of
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: the self same powers which the poet in no idle
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: dreaming seeth in himself, and in the flowers. Everywhere about
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: us they are glowing, some like stars, to tell us
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: spring is born. Others, their blue eyes with tears, are flowing,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: stand like ruth amid the golden corn. Not alone in
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: spring's armorial bearing and in summer's green emblazoned field, but
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: in arms of brave old autumns, wearing in the center
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: of his brazen shield. Not alone in meadows and green
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: alleys on the mountain top, and by the brink of
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: sequestered pools, in woodland valleys where the slaves of nature
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: stoop to drink. Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: not on graves of birds and beast alone, but in
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: old cathedrals high and hoary, on the tombs of heroes
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: carved in stone, in the cottage of the rudest peasant,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: in ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, speaking of the past
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and too the present, tell us of the ancient games
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: of flowers. In all places, then, and in all seasons,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: flowers expand their light and soul like wings, teaching us
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: by most persuasive reasons, how akin they are to human things,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and with childlike credulous affection. We behold their tender buds
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: expand emblems of our own great resurrection, emblems of the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: bright and better land. End of section nine flowers. This
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain Section ten of
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Voices of the Night and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: The Beleaguered City. I have read in some old marvelous tale,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: some legends strange and vague, that a midnight host of
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: specters pale beleaguered the walls of Prague. Side the Moldau's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: rushing stream, with the wan moon overhead, there stood, as
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: in an awful dream, the army of the Dead, white
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: as a sea fog landward bound, the spectral camp was seen,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and with a sorrowful deep sound, the river flowed between.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: No other voice nor sound was there, nor sentries paced
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the mist like banners clasped the air as clouds with
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: clouds embrace. But when the old cathedral bell proclaimed the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: morning prayer, the white pavilions rose and fell on the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: alarmed air. Down the broad valley, vast and far the
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: troubled army fled up rose the glorious morning star. The
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: ghastly host was dead. I have read in the marvelous
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Heart of Man, that strange and mystic scroll, that an
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: army of phantoms vest And when beleaguer the human soul,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: encamped beside life's rushing stream in fancy's misty light, gigantic
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: shapes and shadows gleam portentous through the night upon its
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: midnight battle ground, the spectral camp is seen, and with
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: a sorrowful deep sound flows the river of life between.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: No other voice nor sound is there in the army
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: of the grave. No other challenge breaks the air, but
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the rushing of life's wave. And when the solemn and
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: deep church bell entreats the soul to pray, the midnight
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: phantoms feel the spell, the shadows sweep away down the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: broad veil of tears afar the spectral camp is fled
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: faith shineth as a morning star. Our ghastly fears are dead,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: and of section ten the beleaguered city. This LibriVox recording
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Session eleven of Voices of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: the Night and other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Midnight
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Mass for the Dying Year. Yes, the year is growing old,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and his eye is pale and bleared death with frosty
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: hand and cold plucks the old man by the beard, sorely, sorely.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: The leaves are falling, falling solemnly and slow. Caw caw,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the rooks are calling. It is a sound of woe,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: a sound of woe. Through the woods and mountain passes
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the winds like Anthem's row. They are chanting solemn messes,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: singing pray for this poor soul, pray, pray. And the
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: hooded clouds, like friars, tell their beads in drops of rain,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and patter their doleful prayers. But their prayers are all
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: in vain, all in vain. There he stands in the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: foul weather, the foolish, fond old year, crowned with wild
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: flowers and with heather, like a weak, despised lear a king,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: a king. Then comes the summer like day bids the
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: old man rejoice his joy, his last. Oh, the old
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: man gray loveth that ever soft voice, gentle and low
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to the crimson woods. He saith to the voice, gentle
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and low of the soft air, like a daughter's breath,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: pray do not mock me, so do not laugh at me.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: And now the sweet day is dead, cold in his arms.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: It lies no stain from its breath is spread over
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the glassy skies, no mist or stain. Then too the
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: old ear dieth, and the forests utter a moan, like
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the voice of one who crieth in the wilderness alone
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: vex not. His ghost then comes with an awful roar,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: gathering and sounding on the storm wind from Labrador, the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: wind Eurocleiden, the storm wind. How how and from the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: forest sweep the red leaves away? Would the sins that
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: thou abhorrest o soul could thus decay and be swept away?
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: For there shall come a mightier blast, there shall be
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: a darker day, and the stars from heaven downcast like
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: red leaves, be swept away. Curie Elison, christae elison a
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: couple of footnotes. Erocleiden is a tempestuous southeast wind which
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: raises great waves. The name is derived from the Greek
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: euros the southeast wind, and Cleiden a wave. Currie Elissan,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Cristae elisson in Greek, Lord have pity, Christ have pity.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: These are brief petitions used as responses in the Roman
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church end of section eleven midnight Mass for the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: dying year. This is the last of eleven poems grouped
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: under the heading Voices of the Night. The next fourteen
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: poems are grouped under the heading Miscellaneous. This LibriVox recording
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Voices of the Night and
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Skeleton in Armor
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: This is the first of the thirteen poems that are
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: grouped under the heading Miscellaneous. This poem begins with a
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: preface by Longfellow. The following ballad was suggested to me
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: while riding on the seashore at Newport, Rhode Island, a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: year or two previous. A skeleton had been dug up
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armor, and
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: round tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: though now claimed by the Danes as a work of
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: their early ancestors. Professor Refn in the Memoirs de la
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Society Royalitis Antiquaries du Noor for eighteen thirty eight through
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine says there is no mistaking in this
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: instance the style in which the more ancient stone edifices
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: of the North were constructed the style which belongs to
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the Roman or Anti Gothic architecture, and which especially after
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: whole of the West and North of Europe, where it
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: continued to predominate until the close of the twelfth century.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: That style, which some authors have from one its most
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: striking characteristics called the round arch style, the same which
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: in England is denominated Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture. On
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the ancient structure in Newport, there are no ornaments remaining
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: it is indicative of an earlier rather than of a
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: scarcely form any other inference than one in which I
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: am persuaded that all who are familiar with old Northern
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: architecture will concur that this building was erected at a
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: period decidedly not later than the twelfth century. This remark applies,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: of course, to the original building only, and not to
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the alterations that it subsequently received, for there are several
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: such alterations in the upper part of the building which
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: cannot be mistaken, and which were most likely occasioned by
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: its being adapted in modern times to various uses, for example,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: as the substructure of a windmill, and latterly as a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: hay magazine. To the same times may be referred to
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: the windows, the fireplace, and the apertures made above the columns.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: That this building could not have been erected for a
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: windmill is what an architect will easily discern. I will
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: not enter into a discussion of the point. It is
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: sufficiently well established for the purpose of a ballad, though
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: doubtless many an honest citizen of Newport, who has passed
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: his days within sight of the round tower will be
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: ready to exclaim with Sancho, God bless me. Did I
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: not warn you to have a care of what you
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: were doing? For that it was nothing but a windmill,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: and nobody could mistake it but one who had the
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: like in his head. And now we start with the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: poem the skeleton in armor speak, speak thou fearful guest, who,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: with thy hollow breast still in rude armor dress'd comest
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: to daunt me, wrapt not in eastern balms, but with
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: thy fleshless palms stretch'd as if asking alms, why dost
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: thou haunt me? Then from those cavernous eyes, pale flashes
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: seem'd to rise, as when the northern skies gleam in December,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and like the water's flow under December's snow, came a
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: dull voice of woe from the heart's chamber. I was
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: a Viking, old my deeds, though manifold no scald in song,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: hast told no saga, taught thee take heed that in
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: thy verse thou dost the tale rehearse, else dread a
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: dead man's curse. For this I sought thee far in
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the northern land, by the wild Baltic's strand. I, with
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: my childish hand, tamed the gerr falcon, and with my
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: skates fast bound, skimm'd that half frozen sound that the
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: poor whimpering hound trembled to walk on oft to his
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: frozen lair. Tracked I the grizzly bear, while from my
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: path the hare fled like a shadow oft through the forest.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Dark followed the werewolf's bark, until the soaring lark sang
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: from the meadow. But when I older grew, joining a
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: corsair's crew, or the dark sea, I flew with the marauders.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Wild was the life we led, Many the souls that sped,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: many the hearts that bled by our stern orders. Many
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: a west sail about wore the long winter out oft
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: in our midnight's shout, set the cocks crowing as we
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: The berserk's tail measured in cups of ail, draining, the
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: oaken pail filled to o'er flowing. Once, as I told
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: in glee tales of the stormy sea, soft eyes did
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: gaze on me, burning yet tender, And as the white
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: stars shine on the dark Norway Pine, on that dark
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: heart of mine fell their soft splendor. I wooed the
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: blue eyed maid, yielding yet half afraid, And in the
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: forest's shade our vows were plighted. Under the loosened vest,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: fluttered her little breast, like birds within their nest by
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: the hawk, frighted bright in her father's hall, shields gleamed
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: upon the wall, loud sang the minstrels, all chanting his glory.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand mute
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: did the minstrels stand to hear my story, while the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: brown ale he craft loud. Then the champion left as
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: the wind gusts swept the sea foam brightly, so the
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: loud laugh of scorn out of those lips unshorn from
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: the deep drinking horn, blew the foam lightly. She was
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: a prince's child, ay, but a viking wild, And though
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: she blushed and smiled, I was discorded, should not the
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: dove so white follow the sea mew's flight? Why did
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: they leave that night? Her nest unguarded scarce had I
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: put to sea, bearing the maid with me? Fairest of
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: all was she among the Norsemen When on the white
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: sea strand, waving his armed hand, saw we old Hildebrand
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: with twenty horsemen. Then launched they to the blast, and
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: like a reed each mast. Yet we were gaining fest
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: when the wind failed us, and with a sudden flaw
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: came round the gusty skaw, so that our foe we
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: saw laugh as he hail'd us, and as to catch
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: the gale round veered the flapping sail. Death was the
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: helmsman's hail death without a quarter midships with iron keels
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: struck we her ribs of steel down her black hull
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: did reel through the black water, as with his wings
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: aslant sails, the fierce cormorant seeking some rocky haunt, with
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: his prey laden, so toward the open main, beating to
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: sea again through the wild hurricane bore I the maiden.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Three weeks we westward bore, and when the storm was
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: o'er cloud like, we saw the shore stretching to leeward.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: Therefore my lady's bower built eye a lofty tower, which
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: to this very hour stands looking seaward. There liv'd we
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: many years time dried the Maiden's tears. She had forgot
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: her fears. She was a mother. Death clos'd her mild
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: blue eyes under that tower she lies. Ne'er shall the
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: sun arise on such another still grew my bosom, then,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: still as a stagnant fin hateful to me, were men
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the sunlight hateful in the vast forest. Here, clad in
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: my warlike year, fell I upon my spear. O death
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: was grateful. Thus seam'd with many scars bursting these prison
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: bars up to its native stars. My soul ascended there
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: from the flowing bowl deep drinks the warrior's soul skull
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: to the Northland skull. Thus the tale ended, and of
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: section twelve the Skeleton in Armor. This LibriVox recording is
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Section thirteen of Voices of the
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Night and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Wreck
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: of the Hesperus. It was the schooner Hesperus that sailed
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: the wintry sea, and the skipper had taken his little
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: daughter to bear him company. Blue were her eyes as
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: the fairy flecks, her cheeks like the dawn of day,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: and her bosom white as the hawthorn buds that ope
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: in the month of May. The skipper had stood beside
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: the helm, with his pipe in his mouth, and watched
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: how the veering flaw did blow. The smoke now west,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: now south, then up, and spakean old sailor had sailed
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the Spanish main. I pray thee put in yonder port,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: for I fear a hurricane. Last night the moon had
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: a golden ring, and to night no moon we see.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: The skipper. He blew a whiff from his pipe, and
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: a scornful laugh left he colder and louder. Blew the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: wind a gale from the northeast. The snow fell hissing
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: in the brine, and the billows frothed like yeast. Down
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: came the storm and smote a main the vessel in
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: its strength. She shuddered and paused like a frightened steed,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: then leaped her cable's length. Come hither, Come hither, my
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: little daughter, and do not tremble, so for I can
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: weather the roughest gale that ever wind did blow. He
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: rubbed her warm in his seaman's coat against the stinging blast.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: He cut a rope from a broken spar and bound
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: her to the mast. Oh Father, I hear the church bell.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Oh say, what may it be? Tis a fog bell
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: on the rock bound coast. And he steered for the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: open sea. Oh father, I hear the sound of guns.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Oh say, what may it be? Some ship in distress
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: that cannot live in such an angry sea? Oh Father,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I see a gleaming light. Oh say what may it be?
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: But the father answered, never a word. A frozen corpse
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: was He lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: with his face to the skies. The lantern gleamed through
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the gleaming snow on his fixed and glassy eyes. Then
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: the maiden clasped her hands and prayed that saved she
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: might be. And she thought of Christ who stilled the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: wave on the lake of Galilee, and fast through the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: midnight dark and drear, through the whistling sleet and snow,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Like a sheeted ghost. The vessel swept towards the reef
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: of Norman's woe, and ever the fitful gusts between a
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: sound came from the land. It was the sound of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: the trampling surf on the rocks and the hard sea sand.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: The breakers were right beneath her boughs. She drifted a
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: dreary wreck, and a whooping billow swept the crew like icicles.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: From her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: waves looked soft as carded wool. But the cruel rocks
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: they gored her side like the horns of an angry bull.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice. With the masts,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: went by the board like a vessel of glass. She
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: strove and sank ho ho. The breakers roared. At daybreak
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: on the bleak sea beach, a fisherman stood aghast to
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: see the form of a maiden fair lashed close to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: The salt tears in her eyes, and he saw her
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: hair like the brown seaweed on the billows fall and rise.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Such was the wreck of the Hesperus in the midnight,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: and the snow Christ save us all from a death
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: like this. On the reef of Norman's Woe Editor's note.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Norman's Woe is a dangerous reef at the entrance to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the harbor of Gloucester, Massachusetts. A schooner called the Hesperus
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: Ashley Wench to pieces on the rocks here. In the
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: winter of eighteen thirty nine. Longfellow heard of it in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: a newspaper and composed the famous ballad in a single night.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: This ends section thirteen, The Wreck of the Hesperus. This
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain Section fourteen of
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Voices of the Night and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: The Luck of Edenhall from the German of Uhland. Editor's note.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: The tradition upon which this ballad is founded and the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: shards of the Luck of Edenhall still exist in England.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: The goblet is in the possession of Sir Christopher Musgrave,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Baronet of Edenhall, Cumberland, and is not so entirely shattered
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: as the ballad leaves it. Of Edenhall. The youthful lord
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: bids sound the festal trumpets call. He rises at the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: banquet board and cries mid. The drunken revelers all now
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: bring me the luck of Edenhall. The butler hears the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: words with pain. The house's oldest seneschal takes slow from
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: its silken cloth again the drinking glass of crystal tall.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: They call it the luck of Edenhall. Then said the Lord,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: this glass to praise fill with red wine from Portugal.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: The graybeard, with trembling hand, obeys a purple light shines
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: over all. It beams from the luck of Edenhall. Then
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: speaks the Lord and waves it light. This glass of
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: flashing crystal tall gave to my sires the fountain sprite,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: she wrote in it. If this glass doth fall farewell,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: then O luck of Edenhall twas right a goblet. The
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: fate should be of the joyous race of Edenhall. Deep
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: drafts drink we right willingly and willingly, ring with merry,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: call cling clang, to the luck of Edenhall. First rings
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: it deep and full and mild, like to the song
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: of a nightingale, then like the roar of a torrent wind,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: then mutters at last, like the thunder's fall. The glorious
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: look of Edenhall, for its keeper takes a race of might.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: The fragile goblet of crystal Tall. It has lasted longer
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: than is right, clean clang with a harder blow than
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: all will I try the luck of eden Hall. As
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: the goblet ringing flies apart, suddenly cracks the vaulted hall,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: and through the rift the wild flames start. The guests
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: in dust are scattered all with the breaking luck of Edenhall.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: In storms the foe with fire and sword. He in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: the night has scaled the wall. Slain by the sword,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: lies the youthful lord, but holds in his hand the
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: crystal Tall, the shattered luck of Edenhall. On the morrow,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: the butler gropes alone the gray beard in the desert hall.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: He seeks his lord's burnt skeleton. He seeks in the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: dismal ruins fall the shards of the luck of Edenhall.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: The stone wall saith he doth fall aside down, must
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: the stately columns fall glass. Is this Earth's luck and
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: pride in Adams shall fall this earthly ball one day,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: like the luck of Edenhall end of section fourteen The
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Luck of Edenhall. This LibriVox recording is in the public
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: domain Section fifteen of Voices of the Night and Other
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Elected Knight translated from
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the Danish. The following strange and somewhat mystical ballad is
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: from Nyrop and Rabbex Dansk Vizar of the Middle Ages.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: It seems to refer to the first preaching of Christianity
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: in the North and to the institution of Knight Errantry.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: The three maidens I suppose to be faith, Hope, and Charity.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: The irregularities of the original have been carefully preserved in
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: the translation. Sir Ulof he writeth over the plain full
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: seven miles broad and seven miles wide, But never I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: never can meet with the man a tilt with him
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: dare ride. He saw under the hill side a night,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: full well equipped. His steed was black, his helm was barred.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: He was riding at full speed. He wore upon his
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: spurs twelve little golden birds Anon. He spurred his steed
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: with a clay, and there sat all the birds and sang.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: He wore upon his mail twelve little golden wheels anon
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: in Eddy's The wild wind blew and round and round
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the wheels they flew. He wore before his breast a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: lance that was poised in rest, and it was sharper
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: than diamond's stone. It made sir Ulaf's heart to groan.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: He wore upon his helm a wreath of ruddy gold,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: and that gave him the maidens. Three, the youngest was
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: fair to behold. Sir Ulaf question'd the knight eft soon
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: if he were come from heaven down, Art thou Christ
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: of heav'n quoth he? So will I yield me unto thee?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I am not Christ the Great? Thou shalt not yield
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: thee yet I am an unknown knight. Three modest maidens
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: have me bedight. Art thou a knight elected, and have
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: three maidens thee bedight? So shalt thou ride a tilt
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: this day for all the maiden's honor. The first tilt
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: they together rode, they put their steeds to the test.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: The second tilt they together rode they proved their manhood best.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: The third tilt they together rode, neither of them would yield.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: The fourth tilt they together rode, they both fell on
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the field. Now lie the lords upon the plain, and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: their blood runs unto death. Now sit the maidens in
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: the high tower. The youngest sorrows to death. End of
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: section fifteen, The Elected Knight. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: the public domain Section sixteen of Voices of the Night
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The village Blacksmith
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: under a spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands the smith.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: A mighty man is he, with large and sinewy hands,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: and the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: iron bands. His hair is crisp and black and long.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: His face is like the tan. His brow is wet
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: with honest sweat. He earns whate'er he can, and looks
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: the whole world in the face, for he owes not
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: any man, week in week out, from morn till night.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: You can hear his bellows blow. You can hear him
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: swing his heavy sledge with measured beat and slow, like
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: a sexton ringing. The village bell when the evening sun
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: is low, and children coming home from school look in
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: at the open door. They love to see the flaming forge,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: and to hear the bellows roar and catch the burning
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: sparks that fly like chaff from a threshing floor. He
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: goes on Sunday to the church and sits among his boys.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: He hears the parson pray and preach. He hears his
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: daughter's voice singing in the village choir, and it makes
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: his heart rejoice. It sounds to him like her mother's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: voice singing in paradise. He needs must think of her
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: once more, how in the grave she lies, and with
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: his hard rough hand he wipes a tear out of
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: his eyes, toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing onward through life. He goes
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: each morning, sees some task begin, each evening sees it close.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose. Thanks
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: thanks to thee, my worthy friend, for the lesson thou
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: hast taught thus at the flaming Forge of life. Our
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: fortunes must be wrought thus on its sounding anvil shaped
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: each burning deed and thought. End of Section sixteen. The
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Village Blacksmith. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: Section seventeen of Voices of the Night and Other Poems
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Endemien. The rising moon has hid
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: the stars. Her level rays like golden bars, lie on
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: the landscape, green with shadows brown between, and silver white.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: The river gleams, as if Diana, in her dreams, had
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: dropped her silver bow upon the meadows low on such
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: a tranquil night as this. She woke in Demion with
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: a kiss. When sleeping in the grove, he dreamed not
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of her love like Diane's kiss, unsked, unsought. Love gives itself,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: but is not but nor voice nor sound, betrays its deep,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: impassioned gaze. It comes the beautiful, the free, the crown
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: of all humanity, in silence and alone, to seek the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: elected one. It lifts the boughs whose shadows deep are
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, and kisses the closed eyes
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: of him whose slumbering lies, Oh weary hearts, Oh slumbering eyes,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: Oh drooping souls, whose destinies are fraught with fear and pain.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Ye shall be loved again. No one is so accursed
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: by fate, No one so utterly desolate. But some heart,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: though unknown, responds unto his own, responds as if with
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: unseen wings. An angel touched its quivering strings and whispers
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: in its song. Where hast thou stayed so long? End
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: of Session seventeen, Endemion. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: public domain Section eighteen of Voices of the Night and
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the category miscellaneous.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: The two Locks of hair from the German of Pfizer.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: A youth, lighthearted and content. I wander through the world
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: here arab like is pitched my tent and straight again
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: is furled yet oft. I dream that once a wife
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: close in my heart was locked, and in the sweet
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: repose of life, a blessed child I rocked. I wake
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: away that dream away too long? Did it remain so long,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: that both by night and day it ever comes again.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: The end lies ever in my thought, to a grave
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: so cold and deep. The mother beautiful was brought, then
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: dropped the child asleep. But now the dream is wholly o'er.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I bathe mine eyes and see, and wander through the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: world once more, A youth so light and free. Two
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: locks and they are wondrous, fair left me that vision mild.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: The brown is from the mother's hair, the blonde is
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: from the child. And when I see that lock of gold,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: pale grows the evil red. And when the dark lock
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I behold, I wish that I were dead. End of
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: section eighteen, The Two Locks of Hair. This LibriVox recording
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain section nineteen of Voices of
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the Night and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: the category miscellaneous. It is not always may. This begins
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: with a Spanish proverb, no hay pajaros en los ninos d'antagno.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: The translation is in the last line of the third stanza.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: There are no birds in last year's nest. The sun
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: is bright, the air is clear, The darting swallows soar
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: and sing, And from the stately elms I hear the
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: bluebird prophesying so blue yon. Winding river flows. It seems
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: an outlet from the sky, where waiting till the west
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: wind blows, the freighted clouds at anchor lie. All things
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: are new, the buds, the leaves that gild, the elm
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: trees nod in crest, and even the nest beneath the eaves.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: There are no birds in last Year's nest. All things
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: rejoice in youth and love the fullness of their first delight,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: and learn from the soft heavens above the melting tenderness
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: of night. Maiden that readeth this simple rhyme, enjoy thy youth,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: it will not stay. Enjoy the fragments of thy prime,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: For oh, it is not always may. Enjoy the spring
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: of love and youth to some good angel. Leave the rest,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: for time will teach thee soon the truth. There are
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: no birds in last Year's Nest. End of section nineteen.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: It is not always may. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: the public domain section twenty of Voices of the Night
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: and other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in the category Miscellaneous.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: The rainy Day. The day is cold and dark and dreary.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: It rains, and the wind is never weary. The vine
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: still clings to the moldering wall. But at every gust
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: the dead leaves fall, and the day is dark and dreary.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: My life is cold and dark and dreary. It rains,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: and the wind is never weary. My thoughts still cling
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: to the moldering past. But the hopes of youth fall
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: thick in the blest, and the days are dark and dreary.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: Be still, said heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: is the sun still shining. Thy fate is the common
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: fate of all. Into each life. Some rain must fall,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: some days must be dark and dreary. End of section
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: twenty The Rainy Day. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: public domain section twenty one of Voices of the Nights
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. God's Acre. I
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls the burial ground
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: God's acre. It is just. It consecrates each grave within
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: its walls and breathes a benison or the sleeping dust
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: God's Acre. Yes, that blessed name imparts comfort to those
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: who in the grave have sown the seed that they
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: had garnered in their hearts, their bread of life, alas
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: no more their own, into its furrows. Shall we all
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: be cast in the sure faith that we shall rise
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: again at the great harvest, when the archangels blest shall
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: Winnow like a fan the chaff and grain. Then shall
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: the good stand in immortal bloom in the fair gardens
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: of that second birth, and each bright blossom mingle its
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: perfume with that of flowers which never bloomed on earth.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: With thy rude plowshare death, Turn up the sod and
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: spread the furrow for the seed we sow. This is
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the field and acre of our God. This is the
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: place where human harvests grow and of section twenty one
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: God's Acre. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Section twenty two of Voices of the Night and Other
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to the River Charles Editor's note,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Craigie House, Longfellow's home in Cambridge overlooked the Charles River.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: River that, in silence windest through the meadows, bright and free,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: till at length thy rest thou findest in the bosom
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: of the sea. Four long years of mingled, feeling half
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: in rest and half in strife, I have seen thy
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: waters stealing onward like the stream of life. Thou hast
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: taught me, silent River, many a lesson, deep and long.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: Thou hast been a generous giver. I can give thee
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: but a song oft In sadness and in illness, I
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: have watched thy current gold, till the beauty of its
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: stillness overflowed me like a tide, And in better hours
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: and brighter, when I saw thy waters gleam, I have
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: felt my heart beat lighter and leap onward with thy stream.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: Not for this alone I love THEE, nor because thy
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: waves of blue from celestial seas above thee take their
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: own celestial hue, where yon shadowy woodlands hide THEE and
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: thy waters disappear. Friends I love have dwelt beside THEE,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: and have made thy margin dear more than this. Thy
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: name reminds me of three friends, all true and tried,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: And that name, like magic, binds me closer closer to
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: thy side. Friends. My soul with joy remembers how like
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: quivering flames they start when I fan the living embers
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: on the hearthstone of my heart. Tis for this, thou,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: silent river, that my spirit leans to THEE. Thou hast
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: been a generous giver. Take this idle song from me.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: Editor's footnote. The Lowell home Elmwood is situated farther up
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: the river, and the three friends were probably Charles Sumner,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: Charles Ward and Charles Eliot Norton. End of section twenty
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: two to the River Charles. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: the public domain section twenty three of Voices of the
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: Night and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Blind Bartamus
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: Editor's note. This is a story told in the tenth
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: chapter of Mark, verse forty six of the Christian Bible.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: Blind bartamis at the gates of Jericho in darkness, waits.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: He hears the crowd. He hears a breath say it
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: is Christ of Nazareth, and calls, in tones of agony,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: Jesus pity me. The thronging multitudes increase. Blind bartamis hold
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: thy peace, but still above the noisy crowd. The beggar's
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: cry is shrill and loud, until they say, he calleth
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: thee be of good comfort rise. He calleth thee then
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: saith the Christ as silent stands the crowd. What wilt
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: thou at my hands? And he replies, Oh, give me light,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: Rabbi restore the blind man's sight, and Jesus answers, go
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole, Ye that
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: have eyes yet cannot see in darkness and in misery.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Recall those mighty voices three, Jesus pity me be of
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: good comfort. Rise, he calleth thee. Thy faith hath made
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: thee whole end of section twenty three, Blind Bartemis. This
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain section twenty four
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: of Voices of the Night and Other Poems by Henry
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: Wadsworth Longfellow maidenhood maiden with the meek brown eyes, in
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: whose orbs a shadow lies like the dusk in evening skies, Thou,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: whose locks outshine the sun, golden tresses wreathed in one,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: as the braided streamlets run, standing with reluctant feet, where
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: the brook and river meet, womanhood and childhood fleet, gazing
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: with a timid glance on the brooklet's swift advance on
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: the river's broad expanse deep and still, that gliding stream,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: beautiful to thee, must seem as the river of a dream.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: Then why pause with indecision when bright angels in thy
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: vision beckon thee to feelds elysian seest Thou shadows sailing by,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: as the dove with startled eye sees the falcon's shadow fly. Hearest,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: Thou voices on the shore that our ears perceive no
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: more deafen'd by the cataract's roar. O, thou child of
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: many prayers, Life hath quicksands, life hath snares. Care and
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: age come unawares, like the swell of some sweet tune.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: Morning rises into noon, may glides onward into June. Childhood
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: is the bow where slumber'd birds and blossoms many number'd
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: age that bow, with snows encumbered gather. Then each flower
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: that grows when the young heart overflows to embalm that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: tent of snows, bear a lily in thy hand. Gates
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: of breast cannot withstand one touch of that magic wand
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth in thy heart, the
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: dew of youth on thy lips, the smile of truth. O,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: that dew like balm shall steal into wounds that cannot
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: heal even asleep, our eyes doth seal, And that smile
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: like sunshine dart into many a sunless heart for a
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: smile of God, Thou art footnote. In Greek mythology, Elysian
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: fields are the abode of the blest after death. End
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: of section twenty four maiden Hood. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Section twenty five of Voices of
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: the Night and other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Excelsior.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: Editor's note. This poem was suggested to Longfellow by the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: arms of New York State, with the motto Excelsior. The
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: shades of night were falling fast. As through an alpine
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: village passed a youth who bore mid snow and ice
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: a banner with the strange device Excelsior. His brow was sad,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: his eye beneath fleshed like a felcion from its sheath,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: and like a silver clarion, wrung the accents of that
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: unknown tongue Excelsior. In happy homes, he saw the light
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: of household fires gleam, warm and bright. Above the spectral
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: glaciers shone, and from his lips escaped a groan. Excelsior.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: Try not the past, the old man said, dark lowers
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: the tempest overhead, the roaring torrent is deep and wide
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: and loud. That clarion voice replied, Excelsior. Oh, stay, the
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: maiden said, and rest thy weary head upon this breast.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: A tear stood in his bright blue eye. But still
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: he answered, with a sigh, Excelsior. Beware the pine trees
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: with a branch, Beware the awful avalanche. This was the
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: peasant's last good night. A voice replied, far up the height, Excelsior.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: At break of day, as heavenward, the pious monks of
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: Saint Bernard uttered the oft repeated prayer, a voice cried
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: through the startled air, Eh, Excelsior. A traveler by the
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: faithful hound, half buried in the snow, was found still
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: grasping in his hand of ice, that banner with the
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: strange device Excelsior. There in the twilight, cold and gray,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: lifeless but beautiful, he lay, and from the sky, serene
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: and far, a voice fell like a falling star, Excelsior.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: End of section twenty five Excelsior and end of Voices
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: of the Night and other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read for
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: You with Pleasure by Michel Frye Batonrouge, Louisiana in February
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: and March two thousand, nineteen