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The Writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Hyperion and Kavanagh
The Writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Hyperion and Kavanagh Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK THE SECOND Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn ; Something with passion clasp, or perish, And in itself to... more » ashes burn. CHAPTER I. SPRING. It was a sweet carol which the Rhodian children sang of old in Spring, bearing in their hands, from door to door, a swallow, as herald of the season: — The Swallow is come ! The Swallow is come! Oh, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she hrings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white ! A pretty carol, too, is that which the Hungarian boys, on the islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in Spring : — Stork! Stork! poor Stork ! Why is thy foot so bloody ? A Turkish boy hath torn it ; Hungarian boy will heal it, With fiddle, fife, and drum. But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of ours, where Spring comes sailing in from, the sea, with wet and heavy cloud-sails, andthe misty pennon of the east-wind nailed to the mast ? Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun themselves, and think it is Summer. They die in their conceit; and so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the eastern sea, and again The driving hail Upon the window beats with icy flail. The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves, and the dog-wood, robed in the white of its own pure blossoms. Then comes the sudden rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they ...« less