Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Longfellow Day

by Jason Elmer Hammond

 

LONGFELLOW DAY.

FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVEN.

(All the selections except the first song are from the pen of Longfellow.)

Singing by School—Here’s Where The Scholars do their Best. (In Song Knapsack.)

Recitation—The Poet and His Songs.

Essay—(Subject to be selected from list given.)

Recitation—The Children’s Hour.

Song—The Fatherland.here

Recitation—Nature’s Book.

Recitation—The Two Angels.

Recitation—The Old Clock on The Stairs.

Concert Exercise—Ship of State.

Reading or Recitation—Paul Revere’s Ride.

Song—The Rainy Dayhere.

Recitation—From My Arm-Chair.

Recitation—The Builders.

Reading or Song—The Bridge.^[1]

QUOTATIONS BY SCHOOL.

Song—To Stay at Home is Best.here

1. This selection is set to music in Riverside Song Book, and all the songs mentioned above may be found the same.

Note.—The larger schools may be glad to make use of H., M. & Co’s dramatized form of “ Miles Standish,” which has been arranged for school exhibitions.

 

THE POET AND HIS SONGS.

As the birds come in the spring,
We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
From depths of the air;

As the rain comes from the cloud.
And the brook from the ground;
As suddenly, low or loud.
Out of silence a sound;

As the grape comes to the vine.
The fruit to the tree;
As the wind comes to the pine,
And the tide to the sea;

As come the white sails of ships
O’er the ocean’s verge;
As comes the smile to the lips,
The foam to the surge;

So come to the Poet his songs,
All hitherward blown
From the misty realm that belongs-
To the vast Unknown.

His, and not his, are the lays
He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
And the pride of a name.

For voices pursue him by day
And haunt him by night.
And he listens and needs must obey.
When the Angel says: “ Write!”

 

SUBJECTS FOR ESSAY.

Longfellow’s Travels.
The Homes of Longfellow.
Longfellow’s Works.
Evangeline’s Sad Quest.
The Poet’s Sorrow.
Mission of The Poet.

 

THE CHILDREN’S HOUR.

(To the poet's own children.)

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the children’s hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened.
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair.
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall.
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
 
They almost devour me with kisses.
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
 
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti.
Because you have scaled the wall.
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress.
And will not let you depart.
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

THE TWO ANGELS.

(This poem commemorates the death of Lowell’s wife and the birth of one of Longfellow’s children.)

 
Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o’er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces and beneath,
The somber houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same.
Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,
And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.
 
I saw them pass on their celestial way;
Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
“Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
The place where thy beloved are at rest!”
 
And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
Descending at my door began to knock;
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
The waters sink before an earthquake’s shock.

I recognized the nameless agony,
The terror and the tremor and the pain,
That oft before had filled or haunted me
And now returned with threefold strength again.

The door I opened to my heavenly guest
And listened, for I thought I heard God’s voice;
And, knowing whatso’er he sent was best.
Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

Then with a smile that filled the house with light,
“ My errand is not Death, but Life,” he said!
And ere I answered, passing out of sight,
On his celestial embassy he sped.

’Twas at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath,
Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,
Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.
 
Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
A shadow on those features fair and thin;
And softly, from that hushed and darkened room.
Two angels issued, where but one went in.

All is of God! If he but wave his hand.
The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud.
Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,
Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are his!
Without his leave they pass no threshold o’er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this.
Against his messengers to shut the door?

 

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.

 
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 timepiece says to all,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with his 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,
’Forever—never!
Never—forever!“

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,—
”Forever—never!
Never—forever!”
 
Through days of sorrow and of mirth.
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw.
It calmly repeats those words of awe,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

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 skeleton at the feast.
That waiting timepiece never ceased,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

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,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below.
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

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,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,—
“Forever—never!
Never—forever!”

CLASS EXERCISE.

 
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years.
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what master laid thy keel.
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel.
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope.
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
’T is of the wave and not the rock;
’T is but the flapping of the sail.
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar.
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears.
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears.
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

 

THE BUILDERS.

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise.
Time, is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain
And one boundless reach of sky.

 

PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
 
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church Tower as a signal light—
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
 
Then he said, “ Good night!” and with muffled ear
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay.
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street.
Wanders and watches with eager ears.
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door.
The sound of arms and the tramp of feet.
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread.
To the belfry-chamber overhead.
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town.
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath in the churchyard lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill.
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent.
And seeming to whisper, “ All is well!”

A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side.
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it arose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer—and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns.
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light.
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
 
He has left the village and mounted the steep.
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep.
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge.
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog.
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare.
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
 
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read.
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall.
Chasing the red-coats down the lane.
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road.
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door.
And a word that shall echo forever more;
For borne on the night-wind of the past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need.
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed.
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

 

FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.

To the children of Cambridge, who presented to me, on my seventy-second birthday, February 27, 1879, this chair made from the wood of the Village Blacksmith’s chestnut tree.—Longfellow.

Am I a king, that I should call my own
This splendid ebon throne?
Or by what reason or what—right divine,
Can I proclaim it mine?
Only, perhaps, by right divine of song
It may to me belong;
Only because the spreading chestnut tree
Of old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime.
When in the summer-time
The affluent foliage of its branches made
A cavern of cool shade.

There, by the blacksmith’s forge, beside the street,
Its blossoms white and sweet
Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive
And murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout.
Tossed its great arms about.
The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,
Dropped to the ground beneath.

And now some fragments of its branches bare.
Shaped as a stately chair,
Have by my hearthstone found a home at last
And whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his pride
Repel the ocean tide;
But seated in this chair, I can in rhyme,
Roll back the tide of time.

I see again, as one in vision sees.
The blossoms and the bees.
And hear the children’s voices shout and call,
And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow,
I hear the bellows blow,
And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat
The iron white with heat!
 
And thus, dear children, have ye made for me
This day a jubilee.
And to my more than three-score years and ten
Brought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind.
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
The giver’s loving thought.

Only your love and your remembrance could
Give life to this dead wood.
And makes these branches, leafless now so long.
Blossom again in song.

 

THE BRIDGE.

 
I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o’er the city.
Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay.
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away;

As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide.
And streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.
 
And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, O how often.
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O’er the ocean wild and wide!
 
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me.
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men.
Each bearing his burden of sorrow.
Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro.
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever.
As long as the river flows.
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes.

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbols of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

 

QUOTATIONS.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

—From the Light of Stars.

Thus by aspirations lifted,
By misgivings downward driven,
Human hearts are tossed and drifted
Midway between earth and heaven.

—From King Trisanku.

Whatsoever thing thou doest
To the least of mind and lowest.
That thou doest unto Me!

—From The Legend Beautiful.

 

Spake full well in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelt beside the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden.
Stars that in earth’s firmament do shine.

—From the Flowers.

Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems.
And all the rest are dead.

—From Children.

When e’er a noble deed is wrought.
When e’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.

—From Santa Filomena.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition.
This life of mortal breath
Is but the suburb of the life elysian
Whose portal we call Death.

—From Resignation.

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

—From The Psalm of Life.

God sent his singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth.
That they might touch the hearts of men.
And bring them back to heaven again.

—From The Singers.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng.
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

—From The Poets.

We shall be sifted till the strength
Of self-conceit be changed at length
To meekness.

—From The Sifting of Peter.

Storms do not rend the sail that is furled;
Nor, like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled
In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul.

—From Old St. David.

All common things, each day’s events
That with the hour begin and end.
Our pleasures and our discontents.
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
 
The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept.
Were toiling upward in the night.

—From The Ladder of St. Augustin.

Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well.—From Hyperion.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.—From Kavanagh.

 

NATURE’S BOOK.

*****And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: “Here is a storybook
Thy Father has written for thee.”

“ Come, wander with me,” she said;
“Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.”

So he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long.
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song.
Or tell a more marvelous tale.
*****

—Longfellow—“ The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz. ”

CHARITY.

The little I have seen of the world and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed—the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the tears of regret, the feebleness of purpose, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, the scorn of a world that has little charity, the desolation of the soul’s sanctuary and threatening voices within—health gone, happiness gone, even hope, that stays longest with us, gone,—I have little heart for aught else than thankfulness that it is not so with me, and would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.—From Hyperion.

 

THE THREE STATUES OF MINERVA.

In ancient times there stood in the citadel of Athens three statues of Minerva. The first was of olive-wood, and according to popular tradition had fallen from heaven. The second was of bronze, commemorating the victory of Marathon; and the third of gold and ivory,—a great miracle of art, in the Age of Pericles. And thus in the citidel of Time stands Man himself. In childhood, shaped of soft and delicate wood, just fallen from heaven; in manhood, a statue of bronze, commenorating struggle and victory; and, lastly, in the maturity of age, perfectly shaped in gold and ivory,—a miracle of art!—From Hyperion.