Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,
Now bowing and bending low.
What tale do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?
And why do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind, wild and bleak,
As they beat at the heart of the mother,
Drive the colour from her cheek?"
Mr Longfellow understands how to leave off– how to treat a subject so that all is really said, yet the ear is left listening for more. "By the Fireside" is a series, of course, of mere domestic sketches. The subjects, however, do not always bear any distinct reference or relation to this title. That from which we feel most disposed to quote is written on some "Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass." It has been always a favourite mode of composition to let some present object carry the imagination, by links of associated thought, whithersoever it pleased. This sort of reverie is natural and pleasing, but must not be often indulged in. It is too easy; and we soon discover that any topic thus treated becomes endless, and will lead us, if we please, over half the world. At length it becomes indifferent where we start from. Without witchcraft, one may ride on any broomstick into Norway. But the present poem, we think, is a very allowable specimen of this mode of composition. The poet surveys this sand of the desert, now confined within an hour-glass; he thinks how many centuries it may have blown about in Arabia, what feet may have trodden on it – perhaps the feet of Moses, perhaps of the pilgrims to Mecca; then he continues —
"These have passed over it, or may have passed!
Now in this crystal tower,
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,
It counts the passing hour.
And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;
Before my dreamy eye
Stretches the desert, with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky.
And, borne aloft by the sustaining blast,
This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread.
And onward and across the setting sun,
Across the boundless plain,
The column and its broader shadow run,
Till thought pursues in vain.
The vision vanishes! These walls again
Shut out the lurid sun,
Shut out the hot immeasurable plain;
The half-hour's sand is run!"
We notice in Mr Longfellow an occasional fondness for what is quaint, as if Quarles' Emblems, or some such book, had been at one time a favourite with him. In the lines entitled "Suspiria," solemn as the subject is, the thought trembles on the verge of the ridiculous. But, leaving these poems, "By the Seaside," and "By the Fireside," we shall find a better instance of this tendency to a certain quaintness in another part of the volume before us. The "Old Clock on the Stairs" is a piece which invites a few critical observations. It is good enough to be quoted almost entirely, and yet affords an example of those faults of haste and negligence and incompleteness which even Mr Longfellow has not escaped.
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS
"L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux. 'Toujours! Jamais! – Jamais! Toujours!'" – Jacques Bridaine.
"Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat:
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient time-piece say to all —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'
Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands,
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, 'Alas!'
With sorrowful voice to all who pass —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'
By day its voice is low and light,
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say at each chamber door —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared,
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeletons at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed:
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours, the ancient timepiece told —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'
All are scattered now and fled,
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 —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'
Never here, for ever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death and time shall disappear —
For ever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly —
'For ever – never!
Never – for ever!'"
Mr Longfellow has not treated Jacques Bridaine fairly – certainly not happily. The pious writer intended that his clock, which represents the voice of Eternity, or the Eternal Destiny of each man, should, by the solemn ticking of its pendulum, utter to the ear of every mortal, according to his conscience, the happy "Toujours!" or the mournful "Jamais!" for the joys of Heaven are either "Always" or "Never." But no clock could utter to the conscience of any man a word of three syllables, and by translating the "Tou-jours! – Ja-mais!" into "For ever! – Never!" we lose the voice of the pendulum. The point of the passage is the same, in this respect, as that of the well-known story of the