Something attempted-something done, Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend Thus at the flaming forge of Life THE BRIDGE. A favorite haunt of Longfellow's was the bridge between Boston and Cambridge, over which he had to pass, almost daily. "I always stop on the bridge," he writes in his journal. Tide waters are beautiful," and again, We leaned for a while on the wooden rails and enjoyed the silvery reflections of the sea, making sundry comparisons." Among other thoughts, we have these cheering ones, that "The old sea was flashing with its heavenly light, though we saw it only in a single track; the dark waves are dark provinces of God; illuminous though not to us. The following poem was the result of one of Longfellow's reflections, while standing on this bridge at midnight. The writing of the following poem, The Wreck of the Hesperus," was occasioned by the news of a ship-wreck on the coast near Gloucester, and by the name of a reef-"Norman's Woe”—where many disasters occurred. It was written one night between twelve and three o'clock, and cost the poet, it is said, hardly an effort. Half-way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands, By day its voice is low and light; And seems to say at each chamber door, The breakers were right beneath her bows, She struck where the white and fleecy waves But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, At daybreak on the bleak sea-beach, To see the form of a maiden fair The salt sea was frozen on her breast, And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, ON THE STAIRS. Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared; 66 There groups of merry children played; |