egins while yet my eyes behold
The purpling hills, the wide horizon's sweep,
Flooded with sunset gold.

The day comes earlier here. At morn I see
Along the roofs the eldest sunbeam peep,--
I live in daylight, limitless and free,
While you are lost in sleep.

I catch the rustle of the maple-leaves,
I see their breathing branches rise and fall,
And hear, from their high perch along the eaves,
The bright-necked pigeons call.

Far from the parlors with their garrulous crowds
I dwell alone, with little need of words;
I have mute friendships with the stars and clouds,
And love-trysts with the birds.

So all who walk steep ways, in grief and night,
Where every step is full of toil and pain,
May see, when they have gained the sharpest height,
It has not been in vain:

Since they have left behind the noise and heat,--
And, though their eyes drop tears, their sight is clear;
The air is purer, and the breeze is sweet,
And the blue heaven more near.

* * * * *

LONGFELLOW.

The preface of "Outre-Mer," Longfellow's first book, is dated 1833. The
last poem in his last volume is published in 1863. In those thirty years
what wide renown, what literary achievement, what love of friends in
many lands, what abounding success and triumph, what profound sorrow,
mark the poet's career! The young scholar, returning from that European
tour which to the imaginative and educated American is the great
romance, sits down in Bowdoin College in Maine, where he is Professor,
and writes the "Epistle Dedicatory" to the "worthy and gentle reader."
Those two phrases tell the tale. The instinct of genius and literary
power stirring in the heart of the young man naturally takes the quaint,
dainty expression of an experience fed, thus far, only upon good old
books and his own imagination. The frolicking tone of mock humility,
deprecating the intrusion upon the time of a busy world, does not
conceal the conviction that the welcome so airily asked by the tyro will
at last be commanded by the master.

Like the "Sketch-Book" of the other most popular of our authors, Irving,
the "Outre-Mer" of Longfellow is a series of tales, reveries,
descriptions, reminiscences, and character-pieces, suggested by European
travel. But his beat lies in France, Spain, and Italy