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, The windows, rattling in their frames,- Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain,- 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, Whose balm perfumes the breeze; And the fair and slender creatures, That kneel by the lotus-trees. The maidens listened earnestly, From the German of HEINE. THE TEAR. THE latest light of evening And still we sat in the lonely hut, 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 The precious dew I drank. 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. |