Mr Longfellow understands how to leave off—how to treat a subject so that all is really said, yet the ear is left listening for more. "By the Fireside" is a series, of course, of mere domestic sketches. The subjects, however, do not always bear any distinct reference or relation to this title. That from which we feel most disposed to quote is written on some "Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass." It has been always a favourite mode of composition to let some present object carry the imagination, by links of associated thought, whithersoever it pleased. This sort of reverie is natural and pleasing, but must not be often indulged in. It is too easy; and we soon discover that any topic thus treated becomes endless, and will lead us, if we please, over half the world. At length it becomes indifferent where we start from. Without witchcraft, one may ride on any broomstick into Norway. But the present poem, we think, is a very allowable specimen of this mode of composition. The poet surveys this sand of the desert, now confined within an hour-glass; he thinks how many centuries it may have blown about in Arabia, what feet may have trodden on it—perhaps the feet of Moses, perhaps of the pilgrims to Mecca; then he continues—
"These have passed over it, or may have passed!
Now in this crystal tower,
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,
It counts the passing hour.
And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;
Before my dreamy eye
Stretches the desert, with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky.
And, borne aloft by the sustaining blast,
This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread.
And onward and across the setting sun,
Across the boundless plain,
The column and its broader shadow run,
Till thought pursues in vain.
The vision vanishes! These walls again
Shut out the lurid sun,
Shut out the hot immeasurable plain;
The half-hour's sand is run!"
We notice in Mr Longfellow an occasional fondness for what is quaint, as if Quarles' Emblems, or some such book, had been at one time a favourite with him. In the lines entitled "Suspiria," solemn as the subject is, the thought trembles on the verge of the ridiculous. But, leaving these poems, "By the Seaside," and "By the Fireside," we shall find a better instance of this tendency to a certain quaintness in another part of the volume before us. The "Old Clock on the Stairs" is a piece which invites a few critical observations. It is good enough to be quoted almost entirely, and yet affords an example of those faults of haste and negligence and incompleteness which even Mr Longfellow has not escaped.
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS.
"L'éternité 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 time-piece say to all—
'For ever—never!
Never—for ever!'