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he had not broken with his past, but he did not distinctly see how almost entirely his literary productiveness was thereafter to be confined to verse. For it is to be noted that after the publication of "Voices of the Night" the succession of volumes of poetry was broken only by “Kavanagh," and the collection of his scattered papers under the title of "Drift Wood." 'Kavanagh," published in 1849, at the close of another decade, appears to have been the final form taken by his art of various fancies which had been floating in his mind since the period of his first beginnings in literature. It laid their ghost, we may think; and after that the man of letters ceased to be, and the poet was firmly sealed.

The years immediately following the publication of "Voices of the Night" may be regarded as those of the greatest spontaneity in Mr. Longfellow's poetic work. The title of the next volume of verse, "Ballads and other Poems," hints at the direction his mind was taking. "I have broken ground in a new field," he writes to Mr. Greene, January 2, 1840, "namely, ballads; beginning with the Wreck of the Schooner Hesperus,' on the reef of Norman's Woe, in the great storm of a fortnight ago. I shall send it to some newspaper. I think I shall write more. The national ballad is a virgin soil here in New England; and there are great materials. Besides, I have a great notion of working upon the people's feelings. I am going to have it printed on a sheet with a coarse picture on it. desire a new sensation and a new set of critics. Nat. Hawthorne is tickled with the idea. Felton laughs and says, 'I would n't."" The familiar story of his invention of "Excelsior" is most suggestive of the poetic glow which his mind now experienced. "The Spanish Student" was another experiment in literary art struck out of his enthusiasm for Spanish literature, in which his work as a teacher had been engaging him. The volume of "Poems on Slavery" was the contribution which his patriotism, under stress of indignation, made to the rising tide of antislavery sentiment; but though he never lessened in his strong hostility to slavery, he kept his expression for letters, and conversation, and public acts; in his art he was commanded by less polemic influences.

The first publication of "The Spanish Student" was in 1842, during the author's absence in Europe. The "Poems on Slavery" were written on the return voyage. Mr. Longfellow was now thirty-five years old; and as he turned back after his six months' vacation and faced homeward, he wrote the autobiographical sonnet, published after his death, entitled "Mezzo Cammin." In this he declares:

"Half of my life has gone, and I have let

The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, not the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet."

With the familiarity which Mr. Longfellow now had with great art and the consciousness he possessed of his own poetic power, he could scarcely have been content with brief swallow-flights of song. Conceptions of great works often lie unwrought for many years in the mind of the poet; and Mr. Longfellow's habit of jotting down impulses and momentary resolutions in his note-book lets us partly into the secret of the magnum opus which dominated his life. The possibly vague aspiration of his youth "to build some tower of song with lofty parapet" clearly took somewhat positive shape at this time. There is an entry in his journal, under date of November 8, 1841, which indicates how intensely and how comprehensively the conception of "Christus" possessed him at the

outset :

"This evening it has come into my mind to undertake a long and elaborate poem by the holy name of Christ; the theme of which would be the various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages."

The summer following this decision was that which he spent at Marienberg, and coincidently with the writing of the sonnet "Mezzo Cammin was the memorandum in his note-book ::

"Christus, a dramatic poem, in three parts.
Part First. The time of Christ. (Hope.)
Part Second. The Middle Ages. (Faith.)
Part Third. The Present. (Charity.)"

"The words in parenthesis," his biographer remarks, "are in pencil, and apparently added afterwards."

It was not till 1873 that the work as it now stands was published; and during those thirty-two years, which represent almost the whole of Mr. Longfellow's productive period, the subject of the trilogy seems never to have been long absent from his mind. The theme in its majesty was a flame by night and a pillar of cloud by day, which led his mind in all its onward movement; and he esteemed the work which he had undertaken as the really great work of his life. His religious nature was profoundly moved by it, and the degree of doubt which attended every step of his progress marked the height of the endeavor which he put forth. There was nothing violent or eccentric in this sudden resolution. The entry in his journal, his biographer states, is the only one for that year; but his correspondence and the dates of his poems indicate clearly enough that the course of his mental and spiritual life was flowing in a direction which made this resolve a most rational and at the same time inspiring expression of his personality. He had been singing those psalms of life, triumphant, sympathetic, aspiring, which showed how strong a hold the ethical principle had of him; he had been steeping his soul in Dante; he had been moved by the tender ecclesiasticism of "The Children of the Lord's Supper," and in recording a passage in the life of Christ had fancied himself a monk of the Middle Ages; while the whole tenor of his life and thought had shown how strong a personal apprehension he had of the divine in humanity.

It was nine years from this resolution before he attacked the work in earnest, beginning then, as is well known, with the second part, and publishing it independently and without explanation of his full design, as "The Golden Legend;" but it is fair to suppose that the scheme itself in its entirety was one of those spiritual cinctures which bind the days of man, each to each. It is not at all improbable also that the exactions of his professional occupation had something to do with breaking the continuity of his poetical labor, and making him shrink from a task which called for great absorption of power. Certain it is that when in the winter of 1845-46 he was engaged upon his most sustained flight of verse up to this time, the poem of "Evangeline," his diary bears witness to the impatience of the distractions of his daily life incident to his position, which constantly withheld him from a task which gave him the greatest delight.

The three poems- 66 Evangeline,' ," "The Song of Hiawatha," and "The Courtship of Miles Standish"-have superficially a more distinct place as expression of the larger sweep of Mr. Longfellow's poetical genius, but they bear no such relation to his more intimate life as the "Christus." They serve well to emphasize that ardent interest in American themes which was early illustrated by his eagerness to write of New England life, when he was in the flush of his enthusiasm for the art which Europe opened to his view. They illustrate also his technical skill and his instinctive sense of fitness of form Regarding his period of poetical production as not far from sixty years, these three poems occupy, roughly speaking, the midway decade, and they are in the minds of most the central pieces about which the poet's shorter poems are grouped. Yet those shorter poems which have become most securely imbedded in the memories and affections of readers, those songs which he breathed into the air and found again in the heart of a friend, were freely sent forth with no long intervals up to the very end of his life. Perhaps the longest interval was during that withdrawal which followed the tragedy of his

domestic life.

When he began to lift his head after the calamity which befell him in the death of his

wife," he felt the need," says his biographer, "of some continuous and tranquil occupation for his thoughts; and after some months he summoned the resolution to take up again the task of translating Dante." This was no new study with him; in one form or another it had been a familiar pursuit since he made his first adventure in European literature, and his first collection of poems, "Voices of the Night," contained examples of translation from Dante; but now he pushed the work through to completion, and in the final publication in three volumes left on record a notable expression of an important phase of his intellectual endowment. As translation was one of the earliest signs of his appropriation of the art disclosed to him in foreign literature, after he had completed the tale of his greater works he resumed with distinct pleasure this form of communion with other poets. Indeed, throughout his life he recognized the gracious part which this exercise of translation played in the intellectual life. He found in such work a gentle stimulus to his poetic faculties, and resorted to it when wishing to quicken his spirit. "I agree with you entirely," he writes to Freiligrath, November 24, 1843, "in what you say about translations. It is like running a ploughshare through the soil of one's mind; a thousand germs of thought start up (excuse this agricultural figure), which otherwise might have lain and rotted in the ground. Still, it sometimes seems to me like an excuse for being lazy,— like leaning on another man's shoulder."

It is when one enlarges the conception of the word "translation" that one perceives how well it expresses a pervasive element of Mr. Longfellow's art. He was a consummate translator because the vision and faculty divine which he possessed was directed toward the reflection of the facts of nature and society rather than toward the facts themselves. He was like one who sees a landscape in a Claude Lorraine glass; by some subtle power of the mirror everything has been composed for him. Thus, when he came to use the rich material of history, of poetry, and of other arts, he saw these in forms already existing; and his art was not so much a reconstruction out of crude material as a representation, a rearrangement in his own exquisite language of what he found and admired. He was first of all a composer, and he saw his subjects in their relations rather than in their essence. To tell over again old tales, to reproduce in forms of delicate fitness the scenes and narratives which others had invented, this was his delight; for in doing this he was conscious of his power, and he worked with ease.

"The Divine Tragedy" was finished in 1870. It marks a characteristic of the poet that he must have always by him some comprehensive task; and on the day when he finished "Judas Maccabeus," which was in a sense an offshoot of "The Divine Tragedy," he recorded in his diary: "A new subject comes into my mind." This was, no doubt, the subject of "Michael Angelo." Two months later he wrote: "February 26, 1872. I have more definitely conceived the idea of a dramatic poem on Michael Angelo, which has been vaguely hovering in my thoughts for some time. Can I accomplish it?" In May he finished his first draft, but the poem never was completed. The author kept it by him, occasionally touching it, writing new scenes, rejecting portions, and seemingly reluctant to have it leave his desk. He wrote upon the first page, "A Fragment; and a fragment it remains, even though it has the smoothness and apparent roundness of a finished work. It is possible, also, that in calling it a fragment Mr. Longfellow had in mind the fact that the time of the poem embraced but a small fraction of the artist's life; and this consideration may have led him to throw aside the concluding scene of Michael Angelo's death-bed as indicating too positive and final a close. It is certain that there is but slight attempt at the development of a drama, with its crises and denouement; the form adopted was that of a dramatic poem which permitted expansion and contraction within the natural limits of three major parts, and depended for its value in construction upon the skilful selection of scenes, chronological in their sequence, and yet indicative of the relations subsisting between the principal characters introduced.

There is an interest, however, attaching to this work which grows out of its place in Mr. Longfellow's history. It was found in his desk and published after his death, ten years from the time when it was first composed, and bearing the marks of his occasional

revision. When Michael Angelo holds discourse from the vantage-ground of age with the volatile Benvenuto Cellini, his counsel to the younger man is mingled with pathetic reflections upon his own relation to art. He cannot leave Rome for Florence; he is under the spell which affects one like malaria, —

"Malaria of the mind

Out of this tomb of the majestic Past;
The fever to accomplish some great work
That will not let us sleep. I must go on
Until I die."

So he speaks; and to Benvenuto's reminder of the memories which cluster about the pleasant city upon the Arno, he replies, musing:

The caution against mistaking a poet's dramatic assumption for his own character and expression is of less force when applied to one in whom the dramatic power was but slightly developed; and the whole poem of "Michael Angelo," taken in connection with the time and circumstances of its composition, may fairly be regarded as in some respects Longfellow's apologia. Michael Angelo rehearsing his art is dramatically conceived, and there is no lapse into the poet's own speech; for all that, and because of that, the reader is always aware of the presence of Longfellow, wise, calm, reflective, musing over the large thoughts of life and art. "I want it," the poet says in his diary, "for a long and delightful occupation ;" and he treated himself to the luxury of keeping the work by him, brooding over it, shaping it anew, adding, changing, discarding.

"Quickened are they that touch the Prophet's bones," he says in his Dedication; and it may easily be believed that with no great scheme of verse haunting him, with no sense of incompleted plans, he would linger in the twilight of his poetic life over the strong figure of the artist thus called up before him, and be kindled with a new poetic glow as he contemplated the great artist. For Michael Angelo in the poem is the virile character of the robust Italian seen in a softened, mellow light. We are not probably far astray when we say that Longfellow, in building this poem and reflecting upon its theme during the last ten years of his life, was more distinctly declaring his artistic creed than in any other of his works, and that the discussions which take place in the poem, more especially Michael Angelo's utterances on plastic or graphic art, had a peculiar interest for him as bearing upon analogous doctrines of the art of poetry. The great sculptor is made to speak in his old age of

"The fever to accomplish some great work
That will not let us sleep."

If there was any such fever in Mr. Longfellow's case, and possibly the writing of "Michael Angelo" is an evidence, there certainly was from the beginning of his career a most healthy and normal activity of life, which stirred him to the achievement of great works in distinction from the familar, frequent exercise of the poetic faculty. "We have but one life here on earth," he writes in his diary; we must make that beautiful. And to do this health and elasticity of mind are needful; and whatever endangers or impedes these must be avoided." This last entry lets a little light into the poet's temperament. That calm sweetness of spirit, which is so apparent in Longfellow, was an acquisition as well as an endowment. He deliberately chose and refrained

according to a law in his members, and took clear cognizance of his nature and its tendencies. In a word, he was a sane man. There was a notable sanity about all his mode of life, and his attitude towards books and Nature and men. It was the positive which attracted him, the achievement in literature, the large, seasonable gifts of the outer world, the men and women themselves who were behind the deeds and words which made them known. The books which he read, as noted in his journals, were the generous books; he wanted the best wine of thought, and he avoided criticism. He basked in sunshine; he watched the sky, and was alive to the great sights and sounds, and to all the tender influences of the seasons. In his intercourse with men, this sanity appeared in the power which he showed of preserving his own individuality in the midst of constant pressure from all sides; he gave of himself freely to his intimate friends, but he dwelt, nevertheless, in a charmed circle, beyond the lines of which men could not penetrate. Praise did not make him arrogant or vain; criticism, though it sometimes wounded him, did not turn him from his course. It is rare that one in our time has been the centre of so much admiration, and still rarer that one has preserved in the midst of it all an integrity of nature which never abdicates.

H. E. S.