And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking constellation of the Bear,—and then,
"Far off the village-clock struck one."
So ends this ripe and mellow work, leaving the reader like one who listens still for pleasant music i' the air which sounds no more. Those who will may compare it with the rippling strangeness of "Hiawatha," the mournfully rolling cadence of "Evangeline," the mediæval romance of "The Golden Legend." For ourselves, its beauty does not clash with theirs. The simple old form of the group of guests telling stories, the thread of so many precious rosaries, has a new charm from this poem. The Tabard inn is gone; but who, henceforth, will ride through Sudbury town without seeing the purple light shining around the Red Horse tavern?
The volume closes with a few poems, classed as "Birds of Passage." It is the "second flight,"—the first being those at the end of the "Miles Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know. "The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the memory with its melody, its sportive, affectionate, and yearning lay.
"They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his mouse-tower on the Rhine.
"Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?"
Here, too, is the grand ballad of "The Cumberland," and the delicate fancy of "The Snow-Flakes," expressing what every sensitive observer has so often felt,—that the dull leaden trouble of the winter sky finds the relief in snow that the suffering human heart finds in expression. Then there is "A Day of June," an outburst of the fulness of life and love in the beautiful sunny weather of blossoms on the earth and soft clouds in the sky.
"O life and love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?"
To this poem the date is added, June, 1860.
And here, at length, is the last poem. We pause as we reach it, and turn back to the first page of "Outre-Mer." "'Lystenyth, ye godely gentylmen, and all that ben hereyn!' I am a pilgrim benighted on my way, and crave a shelter till the storm is over, and a seat by the fireside in this honorable company. As a stranger I claim this courtesy at your hands, and will repay your hospitable welcome with tales of the countries I have passed through in my pilgrimage." It is the gay confidence of youth. It is the bright prelude of the happy traveller and scholar, to whom the very quaint conceits and antiquated language of romance are themselves romantic, and who makes himself a bard and troubadour. Hope allures him; ambition spurs him; conscious power assures him. His eager step dances along the ground. His words are an outburst of youth and joy. Thirty years pass by. What sober step pauses at the Wayside Inn? Is this the jocund Pilgrim of Outre-Mer? The harp is still in his strong hand. It sounds yet with the old tenderness and grace and sweetness. But this is the man, not the boy. This is the doubtful tyro no longer, but the wise master, honored and beloved. To how many hearts has his song brought peace! How like a benediction in all our homes his music falls! Ah! not more surely, when the stretched string of the full-tuned harp snaps in the silence, the cords of every neighboring instrument respond, than the hearts which love the singer and his song thrill with the heart-break of this last poem:—