LONGFELLOW IN WESTMINSTE Rk. 35

Then strangé sight met the gaze of all:

A great white stork, with wing-beats slow,
Too sad. to leave the friend he loved,

With drooping head, flew circling low,

And ere the trampling feet had left
The new-made mound, dropt slowly down,
And clasped the grave in his white wings
His pure breast on the earth so brown,

Nor food, nor drink, could lure him thence,
Sunrise nor fading sunsets red ;

When little children came to see,
The great white stork — was dead.

LONGEELLOW- IN WESTMINSTER?

fr Bap Bag

 

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.—from photograph of the bust, by
Thomas Brock, A. R. A., now in Westminster Abbey.

HILD! when you pace with hushed delight
The cloistral aisles across the sea,
Whose ashes old of monk and knight
Renew the legends heavenly-bright
That charmed you from your mother’s knee 3

And steal along the Abbey’s nave,
With war’s superbest trophies set,
To some lorn minstrel’s narrow grave,
Who more unto his century gave
Than Tudor or Plantagenet;

Scorn not the carven names august,
Where England strews memorial flowers,
But circled by her precious dust,
Salute, a-thrill with pride and trust,
Your own dear poet, child of ours!

He stands among her mightiest ;
We craved it not, yet be it so.
If his sweet art were least, or best,
Is judged hereafter. For the rest
Speak fondly, that the world may know :=—=

Not any with God’s gift of song
Served men with purer ministries ;

Not one of all this laurelled throng

Held half the light he shed so long
From that high, sunny heart of his!