CHAPTER XVIII BIRDS OF PASSAGE

 Longfellow had always a ready faculty¹ for grouping his shorter poems in volumes, and had a series continuing indefinitely under the name of “Birds of Passage,” which in successive “flights” were combined with longer works. The first was contained in the volume called “The Courtship of Miles Standish” (1858); the second in “Tales of a Wayside Inn” (1863); flight the third appeared in connection with “Aftermath” (1873); flight the fourth in “Masque of Pandora and Other Poems” (1875), and flight the fifth in “Keramos and Other Poems” (1878). These short poems stand representative of his middle life, as “Voices of the Night” and “Ballads” did for the earlier; and while the maturer works have not, as a whole, the fervor² and freshness of the first, they have more average skill of execution.

The “Tales of a Wayside Inn” was the final grouping of several stories which had accumulated upon him, large and small, and finally demanded a title-page in common. Some of them 214 had been published before and were grouped into a volume in 1863, which, making itself popular, was followed by two more volumes, finally united into one. We have what is not usually the case, the poet’s own account of them, he having written thus to a correspondent in England: “‘The Wayside Inn’ has more foundation in fact than you may suppose. The town of Sudbury is about twenty miles from Cambridge. Some two hundred years ago, an English family by the name of Howe built there a country house, which has remained in the family down to the present time, the last of the race dying but two years ago. Losing their fortune, they became innkeepers; and for a century the Red-Horse Inn has flourished, going down from father to son. The place is just as I have described it, though no longer an inn. All this will account for the landlord’s coat-of-arms, and his being a justice of the peace, and his being known as ‘the Squire,’—things that must sound strange in English ears. All the characters are real. The musician is Ole Bull; the Spanish Jew, Israel Edrehi, whom I have seen as I have painted him,” etc., etc.

Other participants in the imaginary festivities are the late Thomas W. Parsons, the translator of Dante, who appears as the poet; the theologian being Professor Daniel Treadwell of Harvard 215 University, an eminent³ physicist⁴, reputed in his day to be not merely a free thinker, but something beyond it; the student being Henry Ware⁵ Wales, a promising⁶ scholar and lover of books, who left his beautiful library to the Harvard College collection; and the Sicilian being Luigi Monti, who had been an instructor⁷ in Italian at Harvard under Longfellow. Several of this group had habitually⁸ spent their summers in the actual inn which Longfellow described and which is still visible at Sudbury. But none of the participants in the supposed group are now living except Signor Monti, who still resides in Rome, as for many years back, with his American wife, a sister of the poet Parsons. All the members of the group were well known in Cambridge and Boston, especially Ole Bull, who was at seventy as picturesque⁹ in presence and bearing as any youthful troubadour, and whose American wife, an active and courageous¹⁰ philanthropist, still vibrates between America and India, and is more or less allied¹¹ to the Longfellow family by the marriage of her younger brother, Mr. J. G. Thorp, to the poet’s youngest daughter. The volume has always been popular, even its most ample form; yet most of the individual poems are rarely quoted, and with the exception of “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “Lady Wentworth” they are not very widely read. 216 These two are, it is to be observed, the most essentially¹² American among them. The book was originally to have been called “The Sudbury Tales,” and was sent to the printer in April, 1863, under that title, which was however changed to “Tales of a Wayside Inn,” through the urgency of Charles Sumner.

It is the common fate of those poets who live to old age, that their critics, or at least their contemporary critics, are apt to find their later work less valuable than their earlier. Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne, to mention no others, have had to meet this fate, and Longfellow did not escape it. Whether it is that the fame of the earlier work goes on accumulating while the later has not yet been tested by time, or that contemporary admirers have grown older and more critical when they are introduced to the later verses, this is hard to decide. Even when the greatest of modern poets completed in old age the dream of his youth, it was the fashion for a long time to regard the completion as a failure, and it took years to secure any real appreciation¹³ to the second part of “Faust.” This possibility must always be allowed for, but the fact remains¹⁴ that the title which Longfellow himself chose for so many of his poems, “Birds of Passage,” was almost painfully suggestive of a series of minor¹⁵ works of which 217 we can only say that had his fame rested on those alone, it would have been of quite uncertain tenure¹⁶. A very few of them, like “Keramos,” “Morituri Salutamus,” and “The Herons of Elmwood,” stand out as exceptions, and above all of these was the exquisite¹⁷ sonnet¹⁸ already printed in this volume, “The Cross of Snow,” recording¹⁹ at last the poet’s high water-mark, as was the case with Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar.” Apart from these, it may be truly said that the little volume called “Flower de Luce” was the last collection published by him which recalled his earlier strains. His volume “Ultima Thule” appeared in 1880, and “In the Harbor,” classed as a second part to it, but issued by others after his death. With these might be placed, though not with any precision, the brief tragedy of “Judas Maccab?us,” which had been published in the “Three Books of Song,” in 1872; and the unfinished fragment, “Michael Angelo,” which was found in his desk after death. None of his dramatic poems showed him to be on firm ground in respect to this department of poesy, nor can they, except the “Golden Legend,” be regarded as altogether successful literary undertakings²⁰. It is obvious that historic periods differ wholly in this respect; and all we can say is that while quite mediocre²¹ poets were good dramatists in the Elizabethan 218 period, yet good poets have usually failed as dramatists in later days. Longfellow’s efforts on this very ground were not less successful, on the whole, than those of Tennyson and Swinburne; nor does even Browning, tried by the test of the actual stage, furnish a complete exception.

 

1 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

2 fervor   

n.热诚；热心；炽热

参考例句：

• They were concerned only with their own religious fervor.他们只关心自己的宗教热诚。
• The speech aroused nationalist fervor.这个演讲喚起了民族主义热情。

3 eminent   

adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的

参考例句：

• We are expecting the arrival of an eminent scientist.我们正期待一位著名科学家的来访。
• He is an eminent citizen of China.他是一个杰出的中国公民。

4 physicist   

n.物理学家，研究物理学的人

参考例句：

• He is a physicist of the first rank.他是一流的物理学家。
• The successful physicist never puts on airs.这位卓有成就的物理学家从不摆架子。

5 ware   

n.(常用复数)商品，货物

参考例句：

• The shop sells a great variety of porcelain ware.这家店铺出售品种繁多的瓷器。
• Good ware will never want a chapman.好货不须叫卖。

6 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

7 instructor   

n.指导者，教员，教练

参考例句：

• The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
• The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。

8 habitually   

ad.习惯地，通常地

参考例句：

• The pain of the disease caused him habitually to furrow his brow. 病痛使他习惯性地紧皱眉头。
• Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. 我已经习惯于服从约翰，我来到他的椅子跟前。

9 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。

10 courageous   

adj.勇敢的，有胆量的

参考例句：

• We all honour courageous people.我们都尊重勇敢的人。
• He was roused to action by courageous words.豪言壮语促使他奋起行动。

11 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

12 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

13 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

14 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

15 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

16 tenure   

n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期

参考例句：

• He remained popular throughout his tenure of the office of mayor.他在担任市长的整个任期内都深得民心。
• Land tenure is a leading political issue in many parts of the world.土地的保有权在世界很多地区是主要的政治问题。

17 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

18 sonnet   

n.十四行诗

参考例句：

• The composer set a sonnet to music.作曲家为一首十四行诗谱了曲。
• He wrote a sonnet to his beloved.他写了一首十四行诗，献给他心爱的人。

19 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

20 undertakings   

企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务

参考例句：

• The principle of diligence and frugality applies to all undertakings. 勤俭节约的原则适用于一切事业。
• Such undertakings require the precise planning and foresight of military operations. 此举要求军事上战役中所需要的准确布置和预见。

21 mediocre   

adj.平常的，普通的

参考例句：

• The student tried hard,but his work is mediocre. 该生学习刻苦，但学业平庸。
• Only lazybones and mediocre persons could hanker after the days of messing together.只有懒汉庸才才会留恋那大锅饭的年代。