The Bridge

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 of 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,

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The young heart hot and restless,

And the old subdued and slow!

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And forever and forever,

As long as the river flows,

As long as the heart has passions,

As long as life has woes;

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1845.

The moon and its broken reflection

And its shadows shall appear,

As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flow'd the river;

And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,

(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

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18

The Arrow and the Song

Steadily from the outside ring,

And notch'd the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.

"This is the way," laugh'd the great god Pan
(Laugh'd while he sat by the river),

"The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed."
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,-
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds of the river.
1860.

Elisabeth Barrett Browning.

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30

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THE ARROW AND THE SONG

I SHOT an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

1845.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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12

"THE WORLD'S GREAT AGE BEGINS ANEW"

From Hellas

THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires

gleam,

Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

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"The World's Great Age Begins Anew"

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be;
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:

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Although a subtler Sphinx renew

Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

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Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give. 30

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?

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