From “Cato,” Act V. Sc. 1.
SCENE.—CATO, sitting in a thoughtful posture, with Plato’s book on the Immortality of the Soul in his hand, and a drawn sword on the table by him.
IT must be so—Plato, thou reasonest well!—
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
...
The Black-haired gaunt Paulinus
By ruddy Edwin stood:—
“Bow down, O king of Deira,
Before the blessèd Rood!
Cast out thy heathen idols,
And worship Christ our Lord.”
—But Edwin looked and pondered,
And answered not a word.
Again the gaunt Paulinus
To ruddy Edwin spake:
“God offers life immortal...
COULD we but know
The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel,
Where lie those happier hills and meadows low;
Ah! if beyond the spirit’s inmost cavil
Aught of that country could we surely know,
Who would not go?
Might we but hear
The hovering angels’ high imagined chorus,
Or catch,...
Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Das stille Land”
INTO the Silent Land!
Ah, who shall lead us thither?
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.
Who leads us with a gentle hand
Thither, oh, thither,
Into the Silent Land?
It lies around us like a cloud,—
A world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.
Its gentle breezes fan our cheek;
Amid our worldly cares
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.
Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,...
I Never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.
I never spake with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
High thoughts!
They come and go,
Like the soft breathings of a listening maiden,
While round me flow
The winds, from woods and fields with gladness laden:
When the corn’s rustle on the ear doth come—
When the eve’s beetle sounds its drowsy hum—
When the stars, dew-drops of the summer sky,
Watch over all with soft and...
One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er;
I am nearer home to-day
That I ever have been before;
Nearer my Father’s house,
Where the many mansions be;
Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea;
Nearer the bound of life,
Where we lay our burdens down;
Nearer leaving the cross,...
If yon bright stars which gem the night
Be each a blissful dwelling-sphere
Where kindred spirits reunite
Whom death hath torn asunder here,—
How sweet it were at once to die,
To leave this blighted orb afar!
Mixt soul and soul to cleave the sky,
And soar away from star to star.
But oh, how dark, how drear, how lone,...
My days among the dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My...
