THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, Not far away we saw the port, The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, The light-house, the dismantled fort, — The wooden houses, quaint and brown. We sat and talked until the night, Our voices only broke the gloom. We spake of many a vanished scene, And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again; The first slight swerving of the heart, And leave it still unsaid in part, The very tones in which we spake Oft died the words upon our lips, Built of the wrecks of stranded ships, The flames would leap and then expire. And, as their splendor flashed and failed, We thought of wrecks upon the main,Of ships dismasted, that were hailed And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames, All mingled vaguely in our speech; Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain, — The long-lost ventures of the heart, That send no answers back again. O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! They were indeed too much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within. H. W. LONGFELLOW. THE EVENING TALK. WE sat by the fisher's cottage, The lights in the light-house window And on the dim horizon A ship still hung in view. We spoke of storm and shipwreck, We spoke of coasts far distant, Of the giant trees of Ganges, The maidens listened earnestly, From the German of HEINE. THE TEAR. THE latest light of evening Upon the waters shone, And still we sat in the lonely hut, In silence and alone. The sea-fog grew, the screaming mew Rose on the water's swell, And silently in her gentle eye Gathered the tears and fell. I saw them stand on the lily hand, And, kneeling there, from her fingers fair And sense and power, since that sad hour, In longing waste away; Ah me! I fear, in each witching tear Some subtle poison lay. From the German of HEINE. |