The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Генри Уодсуорт Лонгфелло

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INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER

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      Come, old friend! sit down and listen!

       From the pitcher, placed between us,

      How the waters laugh and glisten

       In the head of old Silenus!

      Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,

       Led by his inebriate Satyrs;

      On his breast his head is sunken,

       Vacantly he leers and chatters.

      Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;

       Ivy crowns that brow supernal

      As the forehead of Apollo,

       And possessing youth eternal.

      Round about him, fair Bacchantes,

       Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,

      Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's

       Vineyards, sing delirious verses.

      Thus he won, through all the nations,

       Bloodless victories, and the farmer

      Bore, as trophies and oblations,

       Vines for banners, ploughs for armor.

      Judged by no o'erzealous rigor,

       Much this mystic throng expresses:

      Bacchus was the type of vigor,

       And Silenus of excesses.

      These are ancient ethnic revels,

       Of a faith long since forsaken;

      Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,

       Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.

      Now to rivulets from the mountains

       Point the rods of fortune-tellers;

      Youth perpetual dwells in fountains—

       Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.

      Claudius, though he sang of flagons

       And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,

      From that fiery blood of dragons

       Never would his own replenish.

      Even Redi, though he chaunted

       Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,

      Never drank the wine he vaunted

       In his dithyrambic sallies.

      Then with water fill the pitcher

       Wreathed about with classic fables;

      Ne'er Falernian threw a richer

       Light upon Lucullus' tables.

      Come, old friend, sit down and listen

       As it passes thus between us,

      How its wavelets laugh and glisten

       In the head of old Silenus!

THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS

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      L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"—JACQUES BRIDAINE.

      Somewhat back from the village street

      Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.

      Across its antique portico

      Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;

      And from its station in the hall

      An ancient timepiece says to all—

       "Forever—never!

       Never—forever!"

      Half-way up the stairs it stands,

      And points and beckons with its hands

      From its case of massive oak,

      Like a monk, who, under his cloak,

      Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

      With sorrowful voice to all who pass—

       "Forever—never!

       Never—forever!"

      By day its voice is low and light;

      But in the silent dead of night,

      Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,

      It echoes along the vacant hall,

      Along the ceiling, along the floor,

      And seems to say, at each chamber-door—

       "Forever—never!

       Never—forever!"

      Through days of sorrow and of mirth,

      Through days of death and days of birth,

      Through every swift vicissitude

      Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,

      And as if, like God, it all things saw,

      It calmly repeats those words of awe—

       "Forever—never!

       Never—forever!"

      In that mansion used to be

      Free-hearted Hospitality;

      His great fires up the chimney roared;

      The stranger feasted at his board;

      But, like the skeleton at the feast,

      That warning timepiece never ceased—

       "Forever—never!

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