File:Poems (1852) (14596013997).jpg

Identifier: poem00long (find matches)
Title: Poems
Year: 1852 (1850s)
Authors: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882 Benham, Jane E. illus Foster, Myles Birket, 1825-1899, illus
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Publisher: London, D. Bogue
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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en in Lifes goblet freely pressThe leaves that give it bitterness,Nor prize the coloured waters less,For in thy darkness and distress New light and strength they give ! And he who has not learned to knowHow false its sparkling bubbles show, 268 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. How bitter are the drops of woe,With which its brim may overflow,He has not learned to live. The prayer of Ajax was for light;Through all that dark and desperate fight,The blackness of that noonday night,He asked but the return of sight,To see his foemans face. Let our unceasing, earnest prayerBe, too, for light,—for strength to bearOur portion of the weight of care,That crushes into dumb despairOne half the human race. 0 ye afflicted ones, who lieSteeped to the lips in misery,Longing, and yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried! 1 pledge you in this cup of grief,Where floats the fennels bitter leaf!The Battle of our Life is brief, The alarm,—the struggle,—the relief,Then sleep we side by side. MAIDENHOOD. 269
Text Appearing After Image:
Maiden ! with the meek, brown eyes,In whose orbs a shadow liesLike the dusk in evening skies! J J 270 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Thou whose locks outshine the sun,Golden tresses, wreathed in one,As the hraided streamlets run ! Standing, with reluctant feet,Where the brook and river meet,Womanhood and childhood fleet! Gazing, with a timid glance,On the brooklets swift advance,On the rivers broad expanse ! Deep and still, that gliding streamBeautiful to thee must seem,As the river of a dream. Then why pause with indecision,When bright angels in thy visionBeckon thee to fields Elysian ? Seest thou shadows sailing by,As the dove, with startled eyeSees the falcons shadow fly ? Hearest thou voices on the shore,That our ears perceive no more,Deafened by the cataracts roar ? O, thou child of many prayers ! Life hath quicksands,—Life hath snares! Care and aere come unawares ! MAIDENHOOD. 271 Like the swell of some sweet tune,Morning rises into noon,May glides onward into June. Childhood is the bou

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