Through the Year with Longfellow

Through the Year with Longfellow (1906)
Published by Dodge Publishing Company, 220 East 23d Street, New York.
Bound in brown suede, deckle edged pages.

Found this fine fellow while book hunting, I've missed a few days which I will add below, but I'd love to share each day's entry with you. Hope you enjoy.

January 1st
" 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."

January 2nd
"This world is but the rugged road
Which leads us to the bright abode
Of peace above:
So let us choose that narrow way,
Which leads no traveler's foot astray
From realms of love."

January 3rd
"Why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?"

January 4th
"Stark and dead!
Yet still in his pallid fingers
He clutched the golden bowl,
In which, like a pearl dissolving,
Had sunk and dissolved his soul."

January 5th
"Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise."

January 6th
"By the fireside tragedies are acted,
In whose scenes appear two actors only -
Wife and husband;
And above them, God, the sole spectator."

January 7th
" It is a dream, sweet child - a waking dream,
A blissful certainty, a vision bright
Of that rare happiness which even on earth
Heaven gives to those it loves."

January 8th
"If thou lovest - mark me! I say lovest -
The greatest of thy sex excels thee not."

January 9th
"The world of the affections is thy world,
Not that of man's ambition."

January 10th
" I have heard all. And yet speak on, speak on!
Let me but hear thy voice and I am happy."

That is a lovely idea! Starred :-)

>2 TonjaE: ❤️ I feel that way about your posts, Tonja. This will be a delight.

Speak on, friend!

>3 Dilara86: thank you, I will keep it going :)

>4 DebiCates: Okay :)

January 11th
"With joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were
I find my lost youth again."

I love ❤️ this idea, enjoy!! your with Longfellow.

January 12th
"Strange hopes and fears do beckon to each other,
My brightest hopes giving dark fears a being,
As the light does the shadow."

>9 TonjaE: What Longfellow poem does this verse come from? I'd like to read more of it. I'm intrigued.

>10 DebiCates: I think it might come from a play he has written called "The Spanish Student"
Here is a link to read it: https://americanliterature.com/author/henry-wadsworth-longfellow/poem/the-spanis...

January 13th
"This life of ours is a wild aeolian harp of many joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain."

January 14th
"Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."

>13 TonjaE: I like this! My grandmother use to say something similar to that last line, "The trick to accomplishing anything you desire is to wait, but to work while you wait."

I just saw this! "The Inferno: The Longfellow Translation" ISBN
9781593083311. I've been debating which translation of Dante to read. That might the one I go for.

January 15th
"O, weary hearts, O, slumbering eyes!
O, drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!"

January 16th
"See how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
This is because I have done it myself and not left it to others."

January 17th
"The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear."

January 18th
"Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others -
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her."

January 19th
"Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke;
But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke."

>20 TonjaE: That's an exquisite couplet, one I can sadly relate to.

>21 DebiCates: sending hugs!

January 20th
"Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their over-flow
Raise us from what is low."

It's funny Tonja, in my book today (Family Matters) one of the characters recites a quote from Longfellow! Ha! It made me think of your project.

From chapter 3 of the book:

"Let the dead Past bury its dead,
Act--act in the living Present!"

>24 GregM3: I wonder if it will come up in 'Through the Year with Longfellow'?

January 21st
"The secret longings that arise
Which this world never satisfies!
Some more, some less, but of the whole
Not one quite happy - no, not one!"

January 22nd
"As she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,
Meekly she bowed her own and murmured,"Father, I thank Thee."

>27 TonjaE: Just those two lines.....could make me cry if I let it.

>28 DebiCates: Same

January 23rd
"Epistles important, to go by the Mayflower -
*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *. *.
Letters written by Alden and full of the name Priscilla,
Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla.

>30 TonjaE: This one today is especially intriguing.

>31 DebiCates: I thought it sounds like a riddle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscilla_Alden

>32 TonjaE: I just had to google it. This makes it more intriguing "...poem The Courtship of Miles Standish" "The popular story of a love triangle between Priscilla, John Alden, and Captain Miles Standish was largely popularized by Longfellow's poem in 1858."

>32 TonjaE: I was going to go give it a quick read.

Uh.

Maybe not.

https://poets.org/poem/courtship-miles-standish

ha

>34 DebiCates: Bit of a novel that one isn't it?

>35 TonjaE: ha, close!

There is this audio option
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DEhz1HFc5g

January 24th
"Friends my soul with joy remembers!
How like quivering flames they start,
When I fan the living embers
On the hearthstone of my heart!"

>37 TonjaE: I like that one Tonja!

>38 GregM3: me too, the passage certainly captures that feeling very well.

January 25th
"Christ to the young man said: 'Yet one thing more:'
If thou wouldst perfect be,
Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,
And come and follow Me!"

>40 TonjaE: Sometimes I feel like doing exactly that. Every thing I bring in my home, even something small on a happy whim, seems to become a lifelong contract with it.

>41 DebiCates: I wish I had the self control and discipline to do a thing like that. There's a great poem by Wendell Berry about the idea of being unburdened:

from the last stanza of Sabbaths, 1985, part V:

"Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days' world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight . . . ."

>42 GregM3: "To come into the woods you must leave behind
the six days' world..."

I love Berry, the man. I haven't read his poetry or his novel(s), but I read a lot of his essays back in my Edward Abbey years, when I was reading everyone Abbey-adjacent. Berry's the kind of guy that lives his credo, his principles. Abbey, god love him, always pissed me off when he wrote of throwing a beer can out his truck window. Which he did often.

Interesting about that phrase above, though, the woods (I don't know if he means it literal here or not) were created in those very six days.

January 26th
"Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters returning
Back to their springs, like the rain shall fill them full of refreshment."

January 27th
" 'Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,
Of earth and folly born!'
Solemnly sang the village choir
On that sweet Sabbath morn."

January 28th
"Come back, ye friendships long departed!
That like o'erflowing streamlets started,
And now are dwindled, one by one,
To stony channels in the sun."

January 29th
"Ah, how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain;
And he who follows Love's behest
Far exceedeth all the rest."

January 30th
"Take them, O great Eternity!
Our little life is but a gust
That bends the branches of thy tree,
And trails its blossoms in the dust."

January 31st
"Happy, thrice happy every one
Who sees his labor well begun,
And not perplexed and multiplied
By idly waiting for time and tide."

>49 TonjaE: Reminds me of the sheep run fence you built. :)

>50 DebiCates: The shearers ended up very happy with it. :)

February 1st
"Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
'Ah, when shall they all meet again?'
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply -
'Forever - never! Never - forever!' "

>52 TonjaE: That last line is odd. What do you make of it, Tonja?

>53 DebiCates: I think it might mean that it is unknown; as forever and never are both lengths of time which can't be measured. Kind of like saying "Who knows?" in reply.

February 2nd
"Air - I want air, and sunshine, and blue sky,
The feeling of the breeze upon my face,
The feeling of the turf beneath my feet,
And no walls but the far-off mountain tops."

February 3rd
"Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires."

February 4th
"Never here, forever there
Where all parting, pain and care,
And death and time shall disappear -
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly -
'Forever-never! Never-forever!' "

>57 TonjaE: Again that strange (to me) phrase at the end. I truly haven't fully "got it" yet. Maybe he is saying that there is neither forever or never--that idea of Eternity's time (horologe) doesn't keep track of such trivialities as forever or never. That is only in this life that we have those concepts.

>58 DebiCates: ... spell check really doesn't like the word 'sayeth'. Got there eventually....

"Forever-never! Never-forever!"
To me this feels like an unknown quantity / length of time.

It could be infinite - It could be a split second, and if time is relative it might not always be possible to tell the difference. :)

Forever (by definition) can never arrive, and so; it's never forever. Or at least until time disappears!

>58 DebiCates: I found this quote about him writing the poem that credits the phrase to a French Missionary:

1. "The house commemorated in the poem is the Gold house, now
known as the Plunkett mansion, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the
homestead of Mrs. Longfellow's maternal grandfather, whither
Mr. Longfellow went after his marriage in the summer of
1843. The poem was not written, however, till November, 1845,
when, under date of the 12th of the month, he wrote in his
diary: `Began a poem on a clock, with the words "Forever, never,"
as the burden\; suggested by the words of Bridaine, the old French
missionary, who said of eternity, c'est une pendule
dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement
dans le silence des tombeaux,--Toujours, jamais! Jamais, toujours! Et
pendant ces effrayables ré\;volutions, un ré\;prouvé\;
s'é\;crie, "Quelle heure est-il?" et la voix d'un autre misé\;rable
lui ré\;pond, "L'Eternité\;."'" (Editor, p. 231.)
The French passage reads, in English: "This is a clock of which
the pendulum says and repeats endlessly those two
words only in the tombs' silence, -- Always, never! Never, always!
And during these frightening changes, a condemned one cries out, `What
time is it?' and the voice of another wretched one replies, `Eternity.'"

from https://allpoetry.com/The-Old-Clock-on-the-Stairs

>59 TonjaE: No, sayeth modern technology....ha!

I'm drinking my first cup of coffee, but I think this explanation is finally getting through my thick skull. Thanks Tonja!

>60 saskia17: Oh, Nica, that's some good information there. Kind of dark, isn't it, though? Which I suppose is apt in the silence of the tomb. Thank you for sharing that.

February 5th
"O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more
Than the impending night darkens the landscape o'er."

February 6th
"Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not.
Over him years had no power: he was not changed but transfigured."

February 7th
"The trembling maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery -
The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides and yet unites mankind!"

>65 TonjaE: That divides and yet unites mankind!"

How true! I'm learning that Longfellow was so more than i ever thought he was back when I was in middle grade school. I enjoy these daily snippets.

February 8th
"Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere.
For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,
Many things are made clear that else lie hidden in darkness."

>66 DebiCates: I'm happy you do. He is a deep thinker and quite in touch with things I think.

February 9th
"A holy family, that make
Each meal a Supper of the Lord."

February 10th
"To charm, to strengthen, and to teach -
These are the three great chords of might;
And he whose ear is tuned aright
Will hear no discord in the three,
But the most perfect harmony."

February 11th
"In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased -
Forever-never! Never-forever!"

February 12th
"Take each fair mask for what it gives itself,
Nor strive to look beneath it."

February 13th
"Toiling - rejoicing - sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close:
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose."

February 14th
"By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,
Building castles fair, with stately stairways -
Asking blindly
Of the future what it cannot give them."

February 15th
"Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not it's goal;
'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'
Was not spoken of the soul."

February 16th
"All things rejoice in youth and love,
The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night."

February 17th
"We may build more splendid habitations,
Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,
But we cannot
Buy with gold the old associations."

February 18th
"Such had been the power
Of that celestial and immortal song,
A hundred years had passed,
And had not seemed so long
As a single hour."

How very beautiful. I think I'm a tough critic on poetry but this... this touched my soul.

Such has been the power
Of that celestial and immortal song,
A hundred years had passed,
And had not seemed so long
As a single hour.

It's been a pleasure getting to know you Master Longfellow.
With the deepest respect I continue to turn these pages.

February 19th
"And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away."

February 20th
"Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts."

February 21st
"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward, or homeward bound, are we."

February 22nd
"Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that succeeded
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like,
'Gabriel, O my beloved!' and died away into silence."

February 23rd
"Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child."

Congratulations, @TonjaE !!

Your journey is highlighted in this month's LibraryThing State of the Thing newsletter.

I'm so chuffed for you ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

>85 DebiCates: Hey, well so it is; that's a nice thing! :)
I better keep at it then, and thank you Debi xx.

February 24th
"Patience! accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of affection.
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike."

Today's entry is dedicated to @timspalding and the crew at LibraryThing.

February 25th
"God sent His singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to Heaven again."

February 26th
"From the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss"

February 27th
"Calm, deep and still is now my heart,
With tranquil waters overflowed -
A lake whose unseen fountains start
Where once the hot volcano glowed."

>90 TonjaE: Just stopping by to say that I follow every day. I don't always know what to say, except that old dude surprises me. He sure knows how to write pretty.

>91 DebiCates: Love this, thank you :)

February 28th
"Onaway! Awake, beloved!
Thou the wild flower of the forest!
Thou the wild-bird of the prairie!
Thou with eyes so soft and fawn-like!"

March 1st
"The good deed, through the ages
Living in historic pages,
Brighter grows and gleams immortal,
Unconsumed by moth or rust."

March 2nd
"O precious evenings, all too swiftly sped!
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead!

>95 TonjaE: Is this one about reading in the evenings? :)

>96 DebiCates: I believe it very well could, it fits! Well spotted. :)

March 3rd
"Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer."

March 4th
"Gentleness and Love and Trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!"

March 5th
"The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night."

March 6th
"The stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,
Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship."

March 7th
"I come again to the name of the Lord!
Ere I that awful name record
That is spoken so lightly among men,
Let me pause awhile and wash my pen."

March 8th
"Ah! What would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before."

>103 TonjaE: That's a dark question by Longfellow. Wonder why he was thinking of that.

>104 DebiCates: I wonder if he might have written this after the death of his first wife and child. She died from complications during pregnancy. He lost his second wife too, she was severely burned.

March 9th
"If thou only lookest at me
I am happy, I am happy
As the lilies of the prairie
When they feel the dew upon them."

>106 TonjaE: That is lovely.

March 10th
"The angels sang in Heaven when she was born!
She is a precious jewel I have found
Among the filth and rubbish of the world."

Today's entry is dedicated to my best girl, Gem.

>108 TonjaE: She's a beauty!

March 11th
"Come back, ye friends whose lives are ended!
Come back, with all that light attended,
Which seemed to darken and decay
When ye arose and went away!"

>109 DebiCates: Thank you, I'm very proud of her. :)

March 12th
"Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic - all these creeds and doctrines three
Extant are: but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be."

March 13th
"When by night the frogs are croaking,
kindle but a torch's fire:
Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus
Truth silences the liar."

March 14th
"When thou smiles, my beloved
* * * * *
Smiles the earth and smile the waters,
Smile the cloudless skies above us;
But I lose the way of smiling
When thou art no longer near me."

March 15th
"A fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face."

March 16th
"And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again,
In the fields of light above."

March 17th
"And then the landlord's daughter
Up to heaven raised her hand,
And said, 'Ye may no more contend -
There lies the happiest land.'"

March 18th
"Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
How He persists to knock and wait for thee!"
And O how often to that voice of sorrow,
"Tomorrow we will open," I replied,
And when the morrow came I answered still, "Tomorrow."

March 19th
"O blessed Lord, how much I need
Thy light to guide me on my way."

March 20th
"Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed; for her presence
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls of a prison."

March 21st
"When Christ ascended
Triumphantly from star to star,
He left the gates of Heaven ajar."

>121 TonjaE: Are you sharing these snips of verses as you progress through the collection, or are they at random? I ask because of late there has been a strong Christian theme, and I wondered if that was Longfellows' progression, or the progression of what is resonating with you.

>122 DebiCates: There is an entry for every day of the year, and I am sharing them in the order they appear. I don't do religion myself. :)

March 22nd
"We see dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
What seems to us but sad, funeral tapers
May be Heaven's distant lamps."

>123 TonjaE: Check and check. Makes sense. Thanks, Tonja.

March 23rd
"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem."

March 24th
"In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution
She lives, whom we call dead."

March 25th
"For the structure that we raise
Time is with materials filled:
Our todays and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."

March 26th
"Hereafter? - And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
To find her failings, faults and errors?
Ah! you will then have other cares
In your own shortcomings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors!"

March 27th
"The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed."

>130 TonjaE: Interesting. That seems a different tone from many of the other things he's been saying, hints at bucking against religion's frequent message of obedience that intends to squelch our own resolute will.

How do you read it?

>131 DebiCates: I think Longfellow was probably more of the 'God has no religion' ilk, but an entirely spiritual person.
You might like these books if you're interested in a different view of the "Hereafter." :)

Through the Mists
The Life Elysian

March 28th
"Faith wings the soul beyond the sky,
Up to that better world on high,
For which we wait."

March 29th
"The day is drawing to its close;
And what good deeds, since it first rose,
Have I presented, Lord, to Thee,
As offerings of my ministry?"

>134 TonjaE: This would be a good poem to put on post it on the bathroom mirror as a companion to the last two lines of the Mary Oliver poem that Charlotte had on a post it on her desk. https://www.librarything.com/topic/383176#9164323

March 30th
""Did we but use it as we ought,
This world would school each wand'ring thought
To its high state."

March 31st
"Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,
Nor the march of the encroaching city, drives an exile
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead."

April 1st
"The spirit world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air."

April 2nd
"Sweet April — many a thought
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail till, t its Autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed."

April 3rd
"The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us, unawares,
Out of all meaner cares."

@TonjaE Uh oh...where's our dear Longfellow?

Rhymes in the correct hands...

>141 DebiCates: He forgot to get in the car. Been away for a few days :)

April 4th
"At his touch he felt new courage
throbbing in his brain and bosom,
Felt new life and hope and vigour
Run through every nerve and fibre."

April 5th
"Evangeline, kneeling beside him,
Kissed his dying lips and laid his head on her bosom.
Sweet was the light of his eyes, but it suddenly sank into darkness."

April 6th
"What wrong repressed? what right maintained?
What struggle passed? what victory gained?
What good attempted and attained?
Feeble, at best, is my endeavour."

April 7th
Gathering still, as he went, the May-flowers blooming around him,
Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonderful sweetness —
Children lost in their slumber."

>143 TonjaE: Reminds me of when I was growing up. My mother always threatened to leave us behind at home if we didn't hop on it and get ready.

Guess Longfellow didn't hop on it.

:)

Glad everybody is okay.

>148 DebiCates: Hahaha. He did not hop on it, but all is good and back where he should be :)

April 8th
"Did we judge of time aright,
The past and future in their flight
Would be as one."

>149 TonjaE: Sounds like everyone, including Mr. Longfellow, needed a few days away. He looks fine. You sound fine.

And I'm glad to read a little of the old man again each day.

April 9th
"It is the fate of a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like
a ghost that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the
spell of its silence."

April 10th
"Come, you must not be idle:
if I am a pattern for housewives,
Show yourself equally worthy of
being the model of husbands.
Hold this skein on your hands, while I
wind it ready for knitting."

>153 TonjaE: LOVE this one, "Show yourself equally worthy," ha.

April 11th
"Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,
Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers."

April 12th
"The blessed, in the new covenant,
Shall rise up quickened, each one from his grave,
Wearing again the garments of the flesh."

April 13th
"And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies."

April 14th
"The Puritan girl in the solitude of the forest,
Making the humble house and the modest apparel of homespun
Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her being."

April 15th
"The storm retires and the sky grows clear,
When thy merry step draws near."

>159 TonjaE: Today's sampling goes perfectly along with today's NPM :)

>160 DebiCates: It does! :)
I wrote something for today's NPM.

April 16th
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."

April 17th
"Within her heart was his image
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth,
as last she beheld him."

April 18th
"She is not dead — the child of our affection —
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ Himself doth rule."

April 19th
"Let us do our work as well —
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house where gods may dwell
Beautiful, entire and clean."

I'm still following. I don't always have something to say, just letting Longfellow do his thing.

>166 DebiCates: I know, all good :)

April 20th
"Each man's chimney is his Golden Milestone;
Is the central point, which he measures
Every difference
Through the gateways of the world around him."

April 21st
"The poor in body and estate,
The sick and disconsolate,
Must not on man's convenience wait."

April 22nd
"No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record, written by fingers ghostly
As a blessing or a curse."

April 23rd
"O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away."

>171 TonjaE: That one feels deeply sad to me. It could mean so many things but all bittersweet.

You know, I am one of those people who just Does Not Like poetry, as a rule, but I find I don't mind Longfellow so much. I just skimmed much of the thread and maybe it's the relative simplicity of his verses? (which, of course, is a skill!)

I've been feeling like I'm lacking to only have a cursory familiarity with his work, and it came to a sharp point this week. Thank you, Debi, for pointing me here. :)

April 24th
"Yes — the glad Messenger of love,
To guide us to our home above —
The saviour came:
Born amid mortal cares and fears,
He suffered in this vale of tears
A death of shame."

April 25th
"O flames that glowed!
O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin —
The driftwood fire with-out that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within."

April 26th
"O thou sculptor, painter, poet!
Take this lesson to thy heart:
That is best which lieth nearest;
Shape from that thy work of art."

>176 TonjaE: That's some interesting advice right there.

April 27th
"By the fireside there are old men seated,
Seeing ruined cities in the ashes —
Asking sadly
Of the past what it can ne'er restore them."

April 28th
"Let our unceasing earnest prayer
Be, too, for light — for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One-half of the human race."

April 29th
"Love is life, but hatred is death. Not father nor mother
Loved you as God has loved you; for 'twas that you may be happy
Gave He His only Son."

April 30th
"Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow
Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour."

Out merry May making? Hope all is well my friend.

May 1st
"Maiden that reads this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For O, it is not always May!"

May 2nd
"For thine own purpose, Thou hast sent
The strife and the discouragement."

May 3rd
"Think'st thou this heart could feel a moment's joy,
Thou being absent? O, believe it not!"

>183 TonjaE: Touché!

>182 DebiCates: Something like that, all good :)

May 4th
"So we plow along, as the fly said to the ox.
Who knows what may happen?"

May 5th
"Thou little prisoner with thy motley coat,
That from thy vaulted wiry dungeon singest,
Like thee I am a captive and, like thee,
I have a gentle jailer. Lack-a-day!"

May 6th
"He is in love with an ideal;
A creature of his own imagination;
A child of air, an echo of his heart."

May 7th
"To leave all disappointment, care and sorrow,
To leave all falsehood, treachery and un-kindness,
All ignominy, suffering and despair,
And be at rest forever!"

May 8th
"Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern—unseen before—
A path to higher destinies."

May 9th
"There are brighter dreams than those of fame,
Which are the dreams of Love.
Out of the heart
Rises the bright ideal of these dreams."

May 10th
"The sea hath its pearls,
The heaven hath its stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart hath its love."

May 11th
"All common things, each day's events
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend."