Voices of the Night

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John Owen, 1839 - Всего страниц: 144

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Стр. 6 - Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, — act in the living...
Стр. 7 - Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing Learn to labor and to wait.
Стр. 44 - Take thy banner ! — and if e'er Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, And the muffled drum should beat To the tread of mournful feet, Then this crimson flag shall be Martial cloak and shroud for thee.
Стр. viii - PLEASANT it was, when woods were green, And winds were soft and low, To lie amid some sylvan scene, Where, the long drooping boughs between, Shadows dark and sunlight sheen, Alternate come and go.
Стр. 3 - Stoop o er me from above ; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, The manifold, soft chimes, That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, Like some old poet's rhymes.
Стр. 18 - Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, God hath written in those stars above ; But not less in the bright flowerets under us Stands the revelation of his love. Bright and glorious is that revelation, Written all over this great world of ours ; Making evident our own creation, In these stars of earth, — these golden flowers.
Стр. 17 - SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Стр. 91 - Thy blest approach, and oh ! to Heaven how lost, If my ingratitude's unkindly frost Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon thy feet. How oft my guardian angel gently cried, " Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see How he persists to knock and wait for thee...
Стр. 19 - Everywhere about us are they glowing, Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born : Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn...
Стр. 13 - O fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know ere long, Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong.

Об авторе (1839)

During his lifetime, Longfellow enjoyed a popularity that few poets have ever known. This has made a purely literary assessment of his achievement difficult, since his verse has had an effect on so many levels of American culture and society. Certainly, some of his most popular poems are, when considered merely as artistic compositions, found wanting in serious ways: the confused imagery and sentimentality of "A Psalm of Life" (1839), the excessive didacticism of "Excelsior" (1841), the sentimentality of "The Village Blacksmith" (1839). Yet, when judged in terms of popular culture, these works are probably no worse and, in some respects, much better than their counterparts in our time. Longfellow was very successful in responding to the need felt by Americans of his time for a literature of their own, a retelling in verse of the stories and legends of these United States, especially New England. His three most popular narrative poems are thoroughly rooted in American soil. "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie" (1847), an American idyll; "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855), the first genuinely native epic in American poetry; and "The Courtship of Miles Standish" (1858), a Puritan romance of Longfellow's own ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. "Paul Revere's Ride," the best known of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn"(1863), is also intensely national. Then, there is a handful of intensely personal, melancholy poems that deal in very successful ways with those themes not commonly thought of as Longfellow's: sorrow, death, frustration, the pathetic drift of humanity's existence. Chief among these are "My Lost Youth" (1855), "Mezzo Cammin" (1842), "The Ropewalk" (1854), "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" (1852), and, most remarkable in its artistic success, "The Cross of Snow," a heartfelt sonnet so personal in its expression of the poet's grief for his dead wife that it remained unpublished until after Longfellow's death. A professor of modern literature at Harvard College, Longfellow did much to educate the general reading public in the literatures of Europe by means of his many anthologies and translations, the most important of which was his masterful rendition in English of Dante's Divine Comedy (1865-67).

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