funereal. Suitable to a funeral, dismal, mournful. Life, which, in its weakness or excess, Or death, which, seeming darkness, is no less -Longfellow, Birds of Killingworth. 1. 19. the life elysian. Elysium or the Elysian Fields represented paradise to the Greeks. Amidst its groves and on its meadows set with asphodel, wander the blessed dead, heroes who died in battle, the noble poets, the benefactors of humanity. Page 63. 1. 22.-school. Not a dignified word in this connection, but elevated by the following description“a great cloister "—into something massive, antique, inspiring awe and veneration. 1. 25.-cloister. Strictly, a covered walk adjoining the cells of a monastery, usually alongside the inner silent quadrangle; here, the monastery or convent itself. 1. 33f.-we walk with her, etc. Accompany her day by day in thought, keeping close the bond of love with which nature unites parents and child. 1. 41.-in her Father's mansion. cf. John, xiv. 2. A biblical phrase; Page 64. 1. 47.-like the ocean. etc. Cf. Evang., 1. 182. 1. 51-By silence sanctifying, etc. The progress of thought throughout the poem should be clearly studied, so that the culminating effect of the final stanza may be clearly realized. Death, however it appears, is the work of heaven not earth; it really means a fuller life in Paradise; to mourn is therefore to be rebellious against God; yet the impulse of grief is at times too strong to be wholly repressed; there remains for us, then, only to purify and sanctify this grief through patience and silence. THE BUILDERS. Composition and publication. "Finished a poem called 'The Builders.'"-Longfellow's Journal, May 9th, 1846. It was published in Seaside and Fireside, Second Part, pp. 55-57, and has remained without change throughout all subsequent editions. The interpretation of the pocm. The poem stands in close relation of thought to the Ladder of St. Augustine, yet there is a difference. The one is inspired preaching on the necessity of doing each day our best, so that we may attain the heights of intellectual and spiritual being. The latter, however, is in the first place devoted to the spiritual life, to the rise of moral being, consequent on our living down our faults, our mistakes, our vices, growing in moral strength by the struggle. In the closing stanzas of the poem the thought reverts to the theme of The Builders, the need of doing our utmost. The two poems and the Psalm of Life are eminent instances of Longfellow's didactic poetry, which is conscious preaching, yet so fraught with genuine right feeling and touched with such grace of expression and delicacy of allusion, that it achieves the almost impossible task of being, in addition to preaching, poetry of inspiration. The allegory that pervades this poem is that of a great temple reared by humanity with its achievements. If we are true builders our deeds will enter as perfect parts into this temple, which will then be fit as for the dwelling of the gods; if we are negligent, then our lives will be but as "blocks of stumbling to ourselves and to our successors. If our deeds to-day are wise and good, they will amply sustain our deeds of to-morrow, and we rising with our rising deeds at last shall attain the fullest perfection of which life is capable. The reader of this poem, as with many of the poems of Longfellow, must be satisfied with the truth of general impression, not striving to find minute truth in every detail of the allegory. Page 65. 1. 1.-architects of Fate. In the sense of the old poet who wrote, Man is his own star, and the soul that can -Fletcher, Honest Man's Fortune. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. -Young, Night Thoughts, vi. Page 65. 1. 2.-walls of Time. The achievements of humanity through all ages, symbolized as a temple or palace of Time, ever in course of erection, ever finishing, yet ever unbuilt again; or, like Arthur's Camelot, The city is built To music, therefore never built at all, -Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette. 1. 10.-Time is with materials filled. Our deeds lie within the "walls of Time," but are a useless cumber to the edifice till we employ them to build up our life and the life of humanity. 1. 13.—shape and fashion these. Using the knowledge and the experience we have gained to help us, while we ceaselessly do the duties the present lays upon us. Page 66. 1. 23.-house, where Gods may dwell. A suggestion of "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," 1. Cor. vi. 19. Yet also a suggestion from 1. 20. This stanza, strengthened by the reference to the perfection of ancient building, resumes the thought of 1. 16. Imperfections may pass unnoticed with men, but the great structure of humanity will have to bear the scrutiny of the gods, who may sometimes inhabit it. As our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, so the mighty spiritual world or temple of art, science, civilization, created by men through all the ages, may at last become fit habitation for the gods themselves. 1. 25.—Else our lives are incomplete. Cf. "The building up of life with solid blocks of idleness, as I do here, is a poor kind of architecture."—L., Journal, Aug. 27th, 1851. 1. 29.-Build to-day, etc. Here the poem seems to depart from its main theme to speak of each individual life, no longer a part of the temple of humanity, but, as it were, its own individual edifice, capable of completeness and perfection. 1. 34.-turrets. Suggesting completion of building as well as height of attainment. 1. 35.-Sees the world, etc. The imaginery of the last lines is a picturesque delineation of the attainment of the highest. Compare the allegory of the youth climbing the mountain in Excelsior. THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Composition and publication. A poem from Birds of Passage, Flight the First, published in The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems, 1858, and written some years before. The only change from the text of this early date is in the punctuation of 1. 44. Page 67. 1. 1.—Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said. Pronounce aug' us tēn. St. Aurelius Augustinus (354-430), the greatest and most influential of the Latin fathers of the Church. After years of study, not free from vice, Augustine was converted at Milan by St. Ambrose, and returned to his home in Tagaste, Numidia, to organize a religious community. Elected bishop of Hippo, he gave himself up to ceaseless labours, taking a chief part in the great religious controversies of the time, and leaving behind him an immense mass of controversial literature, letters, sermons and commentaries. Longfellow in a note, ed. 1864, says: "The words of St. Augustine are, De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus."-Sermon III., De Ascensione. The reference is, I believe, inexact. 1. 3f.—we can frame a ladder, etc. Tennyson voices this thought in the opening lines of In Memoriam,— I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, He is thought to refer here to Goethe, whose life and writings are a great exemplar of the principle. It is interesting to notice that Milton uses the same imagery, in a different connection however. In contemplation of created things -Paradise Lost, v. 511f. 1. 16.-Irreverence for the dreams of youth. Heaven lies about us in our infancy! But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, The Youth, who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, -Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality. Page 68. 1. 24.-right of eminent domain. Lit., the supreme right of the sovereign or state over private property, by |