Palingenesis

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * Track #139 On The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Palingenesis by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Palingenesis Annotated

I lay upon the headland-height, and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea
&nbsp In caverns under me,
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
&nbsp Melted away in mist.

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes
&nbsp Seemed peopled with the shapes
Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
&nbsp On faces seen in dreams.

A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
&nbsp Stood lonely as before;
And the wild-roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
&nbsp Their petals of pale red.

There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
&nbsp And cunning alchemists
Could re-create the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
&nbsp Without the lost perfume.

Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
&nbsp The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
&nbsp Renew this phantom-flower?

"O, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors,
The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,
&nbsp When the swift stream of life
Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap
&nbsp Into the unknown deep!"

And the sea answered, with a lamentation,
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,
&nbsp "Alas! thy youth is dead!
It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation;
In the dark places with the dead of old
&nbsp It lies forever cold!"

Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements
I will not drag this sacred dust again,
&nbsp Only to give me pain;
But, still remembering all the lost endearments,
Go on my way, like one who looks before,
&nbsp And turns to weep no more."

Into what land of harvests, what plantations
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow
&nbsp Of sunsets burning low;
Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations
Light up the spacious avenues between
&nbsp This world and the unseen!

Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,
What households, though not alien, yet not mine,
&nbsp What bowers of rest divine;
To what temptations in lone wildernesses,
What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,
&nbsp The bearing of what cross!

I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic book which hold
&nbsp The story still untold,
But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
&nbsp Until "The End" I read.

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