Written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
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Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
.
The loud vociferations of the street
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Become an undistinguishable roar.
.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
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And leave my burden at this minster gate,
.
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
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The tumult of the time disconsolate
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To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
.
While the eternal ages watch and wait.II.2.
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
.
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
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Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
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Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
.
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
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But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
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Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
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And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
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Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
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What exultations trampling on despair,
.
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
.
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
.
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
.
This medi?val miracle of song!
III.Written December 22, 1865.3.
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
.
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
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And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
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The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
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The congregation of the dead make room
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For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
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Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
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The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
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From the confessionals I hear arise
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Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
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And lamentations from the crypts below;
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And then a voice celestial that begins
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With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
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As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."
IV.Written May 5, 1867.4.
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
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She stands before thee, who so long ago
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Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
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From which thy song and all its splendors came;
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And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
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The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
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On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
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Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
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Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
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As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
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Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
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Lethe and Euno? -- the remembered dream
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And the forgotten sorrow -- bring at last
.
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
V.Written January 16, 1866.5.
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
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With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
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Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
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And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
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Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
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With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
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And Beatrice again at Dante's side
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No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
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And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
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Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
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And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
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And the melodious bells among the spires
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O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
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Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
VI.Written March 7, 1866.6.
O star of morning and of liberty!
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O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
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Above the darkness of the Apennines,
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Forerunner of the day that is to be!
.
The voices of the city and the sea,
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The voices of the mountains and the pines,
.
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
.
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
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Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
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Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
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As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
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Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
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In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
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And many are amazed and many doubt.
|
Written by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning |
I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud---
I build it bright to see,---
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.
Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,---
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
And a smell of spring.
Build the entrance high and proud,
Darkening and then brightening,---
If a riven thunder-cloud,
Veined by the lightning.
Use one with an iris-stain,
For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
As I enter in.
Build a spacious hall thereby:
Boldly, never fearing.
Use the blue place of the sky,
Which the wind is clearing;
Branched with corridors sublime,
Flecked with winding stairs---
Such as children wish to climb,
Following their own prayers.
In the mutest of the house,
I will have my chamber:
Silence at the door shall use
Evening's light of amber,
Solemnising every mood,
Softemng in degree,---
Turning sadness into good,
As I turn the key.
Be my chamber tapestried
With the showers of summer,
Close, but soundless,---glorified
When the sunbeams come here;
Wandering harpers, harping on
Waters stringed for such,---
Drawing colours, for a tune,
With a vibrant touch.
Bring a shadow green and still
From the chestnut forest,
Bring a purple from the hill,
When the heat is sorest;
Spread them out from wall to wall,
Carpet-wove around,---
Whereupon the foot shall fall
In light instead of sound.
Bring the fantasque cloudlets home
From the noontide zenith
Ranged, for sculptures, round the room,---
Named as Fancy weeneth:
Some be Junos, without eyes;
Naiads, without sources
Some be birds of paradise,---
Some, Olympian horses.
Bring the dews the birds shake off,
Waking in the hedges,---
Those too, perfumed for a proof,
From the lilies' edges:
From our England's field and moor,
Bring them calm and white in;
Whence to form a mirror pure,
For Love's self-delighting.
Bring a grey cloud from the east,
Where the lark is singing;
Something of the song at least,
Unlost in the bringing:
That shall be a morning chair,
Poet-dream may sit in,
When it leans out on the air,
Unrhymed and unwritten.
Bring the red cloud from the sun
While he sinketh, catch it.
That shall be a couch,---with one
Sidelong star to watch it,---
Fit for poet's finest Thought,
At the curfew-sounding,--- ;
Things unseen being nearer brought
Than the seen, around him.
Poet's thought,----not poet's sigh!
'Las, they come together!
Cloudy walls divide and fly,
As in April weather!
Cupola and column proud,
Structure bright to see---
Gone---except that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee!
Let them! Wipe such visionings
From the Fancy's cartel---
Love secures some fairer things
Dowered with his immortal.
The sun may darken,---heaven be bowed---
But still, unchanged shall be,---
Here in my soul,---that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with THEE!
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