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In many of the earlier poems of Longfellow that earnest devout spirit which loves to linger in the light of Divine Revelation is plainly visible. Notably in the "Norman Baron," dying, penitent and sorrowful:

Tears upon his eyelids glistened,
As he paused awhile and listened,
And the dying baron slowly

Turned his weary head to hear.
Wassail for the kingly stranger,
Born and cradled in a manger!
King, like David; priest, like Aaron;
Christ is born to set us free!

And the lightning showed the sainted Figures on the casement painted, And exclaimed the shuddering baron, "Miserere, Dominie!"' Also in many of his admirable translations from the Swedish and German, and in "Blind Bartimeus," a poem which the reader will find embodied in the "Divine Tragedy." Gifted with that perfect religious faith, which sees in those mysteries and miracles which perplex and mystify the men who argue and reason upon them only sublime manifestations of that Omniscient Being to whom "all things are possible," the author of "Evangeline," is especially well qualified to fulfil the task which he has now undertaken. He has woven the gospel narrative into a beautiful poem, without in any way interfering with the sanctity and reverence due to his spiritual subject. The picture-galleries of Europe are crowded with the masterpieces of Flemish and Italian artists, the chief number of them embodying and illustrating the birth, acts, or death, of our Saviour; but, hitherto, poets have rarely sought their inspiration in the pages of the New Testament. It is difficult, however, to understand, why

ANGEL.

Awake from thy sleep, O dreamer!
The hour is near, though late;

Awake! write the vision sublime,

The vision, that is for a time,
Though it tarry, wait; it is nigh;
In the end it will speak and not lie.

After this lyrical prelude, the poem opens with "Vox Clamantis " (a title which is to be found in a poem by Gower) the voice of John the Baptist, proclaiming the advent of the Divine figure foretold by the Prophets of old.

The Messiah, the Paraclete,
The Desire of the Nations.

A priest questions John, "Art

thou Elias?" and he makes answer in literally the language of Scripture,

I am the voice of one

Crying in the wilderness alone :
Prepare ye the way of the Lord;
Make his paths straight.

So thorough an example of severe simplicity it would be difficult to find, and such homely lines would only be employed by a man whose mind was saturated with a zealous love and devotion for his sublime theme. The second part of the First Passover "Mount Quarantannia," has passages full of rare beauty, grace, and power; Christus and Lucifer are in colloquy, but before disclosing himself the Evil Spirit communes apart, meditative and hypocritical :

Not as a terror and a desolation.
Not in my natural shape, inspiring fear
And dread, will I appear;
But in soft tones of sweetness and per-

suasion,

A sound as of the fall of mountain streams, Or voices heard in dreams.

From far-off Lebanon, with cedars crested, To where the waters of the Asphalt Lake On its white pebbles break,

And the vast desert, silent, sand-invested; These kingdoms all are mine, and thine shall be,

If thou wilt worship me!"

The calm, dignified, rebuke of Christus, follows, in reply to the harmonious speech of the Tempter,

Get thee behind me, Satan! and the jubilant voices of minister ing angels close the dialogue with music.

The sun goes down; the evening shadows lengthen,

The fever and the struggle of the day
Abate and pass away;

Thine angels ministrant, we

strengthen,

come to

Into the house of God, and ate the shewbread, Which was priests ? Have ye not read, how on the Sabbath days

not lawful saving for the

The priests profane the Sabbath in the Temple,

And yet are blameless? But I say to you, One in this place is greater than the Temple!

And had ye known the meaning of the words,

I will have mercy and not sacrifice,
The guiltless ye would not condemn. The
Sabbath

Was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath.

Disbelieving the sacred lips which utter this doctrine, the self-righteous Pharisees pass on their way, denouncing to each other "the poor demoniac" who is leading deluded men astray, and uttering blasphemies to the common people

Who receive

As prophecies the words they comprehend not!

There is none
So visionary, or so void of sense
But he will find a crowd to follow him!

When Christus appears reading in, the synagogue, bearing good tidings to the poor, the sorrowful in spirit, widows and captives, comforting and sustaining them with the certain. hope of a joyful hereafter, Priest and Pharisee both stigmatise his preaching, and blame him for vain. and "seditious words." They thrust out Christus from the synagogue, his balm and his medicaments are unknown to them, and He, the teacher

A carpenter's apprentice! a mechanic, Whom we have seen at work here in the town

Day after day; a stripling without learning, Shall he pretend to unfold the Word of God To men grown old in study of the law? By the shores of the "Sea of Galilee," Peter and Philip and Andrew discourse on the ejectment of their Master by the Nazarenes, and they relate the wondrous tale of the widow's only son raised from the dead. Instinct with the spirit of faith they praise the marvellous acts of which they have been witnesses. But in their company comes one whose presence they distrustJudas Iscariot; he that cometh last, Girt with a leathern apron. No one knoweth His history; but the rumour of him is He had an unclean spirit in his youth. It hath not left him yet.

In testimony of the power of Christus to expel "unclean spirits " the expulsion of one from the "demoniac of Gadara" is narrated, and the miracle whereby the daughter of Jairus is restored to the embrace of her mother when all voices had pronounced her dead, is the striking episode in "Tabitha Cumi.' The crowd of on-lookers utter, in amazement and awe,

the reader is awakened in a digressive and desultory way, inseparable from the manner in which Longfellow has divided the separate portions of his fine poem. Chapter the Ninth shows us the sorrowful figure of Mary Magdalene in "The Tower of Magdala."

Companionless, unsatisfied, forlorn. she is sick at heart, weary of garments redolent with perfumes, of costly embroideries, of music, of revels, of

Merchants of Tyre, and Princes of Damas

cus;

of silken robes, gold, and of

Rings thick set with pearls, And emerald, and amethyst, and jasper. She takes no longer any delight in bedecking the body, "which men call beautiful." The revelation of a divine existence purifies and exalts her.

This morning, when the first gleam of the

dawn

Made Lebanon a glory in the air,
And all below was darkness, I beheld
An angel, or a spirit glorified,
With wind-tossed garments walking on the
lake.

The face I could not see, but I distinguished
The attitude and gesture, and I knew
'Twas he that healed me.

Henceforth her whole heart is bent on a mission of love, repentant and hopeful. To bathe the consecrated feet. To go on a pilgrimage bearing a

Box of alabaster, in whose walls The souls of flowers lie pent, the precious balm

And spikenard of Arabian farms, the spirits

Of aromatic herbs, ethereal natures, Nursed by the sun and dew. This labour of love accomplished, the weary spirit will be strengthened, and the impure nature purified.

Vague and dreamy as the personification is in these passages, and

lives!

Her mother holds her folded in her arms! O miracle of miracles! O marvel!

Thus, by the relation of distinct events and incidents, the interest of

presentation which the highest order of genius would have created, the reader cannot fail to be delighted with the pathos and musical diction of this and many other parts of

"The Divine Tragedy." No contemporary poet on either side of the Atlantic could produce poetry more musical and pathetic than this which Mr. Longfellow now presents us with, and for which we express unqualified admiration and gratitude.

The events of the Second Passover are distributed over eleven sections. In the first part, "Before the Gates of Machærus," Manahem, whom we have already seen in "The Marriage in Cana," and who is described as Manahem,

The Essenian, he who dwells among the palms

Near the Dead Sea,

lighted king. He, enchanted, proffers her what she pleases, even the half of his kingdom :

Give me here the head

Of John the Baptist on this silver charger! Good Manahem, loth to remain and see the dreadful fulfilment of the accursed oath, rushes wildly away from "The Walls of Macharus," invoking maledictions and the wrath of God on Herod and his "Palace of Sin."

"Blind Bartimeus" is pleasantly pourtrayed, sitting beneath the palmtrees in the shadow of the walls of Jericho, hearing the hum of bees, murmur of many voices,

The Angels of the Wind Hasten across the desert to receive me; And sweeter than men's voices are to me The voices of these solitudes; the sound Of unseen rivulets, and the far-off cry Of bitterns in the reeds of water-pools. And as the "clamorous cranes" pursue their trackless way high overhead between the dreamer and the starlight, he addresses themO ye mysterious pilgrims of the air, Would I had wings that I might follow you!

Then rising to a rapturous strain of prophecy, he foretels that awful sacrifice which insures for penitent mortals rest and immortality:

I see beneath me

The desert stretching to the Dead Sea shore,

And westward, faint and far away, the glimmer

Of torches on Mount Olivet, announcing
The rising of the Moon of Passover.
Like a great cross it seems, on which sus-
pended,

With head bowed down in agony, I see
A human figure! Hide, O merciful heaven,
The awful apparition from my sight!

To Sidon or Damascus.

He talks to Chilion, his fair daughter, of Rahab and Joshua, and the prophet Elijah, and then deplores his loss of vision, with a wistful desire to see the sweet face of his beautiful listener:

A young man clad in white Is coming through the gateway, and a crowd

Of people follow.

whispers Chilion, and Blind Bartimeus calls, with the energy of hope and faith, on "Jesus of Nazareth, son of David," to restore his eyesight.

The miracle is wrought. The blue sky, the green trees, the city walls, the old gateway, are seen by Bartimeus: all the old familiar sights come back to him, and the beloved face of his unseen daughter. "How beautiful thou art !" he exclaims,

I should have known thee; Thou hast her eyes whom we shall see hereafter!

"At Bethany," reveals Martha busy about household affairs, and Christ. The former is the drudge her sister Mary sitting at the feet of of the house, makes ready the guestchamber, and prepares the food; the latter, when Christus comes to Bethany,

I must sit at thy feet; must see thee, hear Cannot work ;

I have a feeble, wayward, doubting heart, Incapable of endurance or great thoughts, Striving for something that it cannot reach, Baffled and disappointed, wounded, hun

gry;

And only when I hear thee am I happy. And only when I see thee am at peace!

In the dialogue of "Simon Magus and Helen of Tyre," there is more dramatic personality than in any of the other sections of "The Divine Tragedy." Simon and Helen are seated by night on the house-top at Endor; and the great magician, gazing on the beauty of the scenery before them, says to his beautiful companion,

Thou hast seen the land; Is it not fair to look on?

personality of the speaker. The woman's nature melts to the memory of the delights and pleasure of former days. The man rapt in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, studying

The divine Chaldean Oracles,

The Twelve Books of the Avesta,

ignores the pleasures of frivolous men as illusions, and nurses the belief of his own greatness in solitary but not with that intensity of affecpride. He loves Helen of Tyre, tion which he bestows on the precious things of his laboratory and study.

With a pardonable vanity Mr. Longfellow introduces his poem of "Blind Bartimeus" into the first part of "The Third Passover," "The Entry into Jerusalem." The daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, seated with her mother on a house-top at Jerusalem, to witness the meek entry of Jesus of Nazareth into the Holy City, sings it, and her mother, commenting upon it, tells her daughter how Christ came to Tyre and Sidon, and that, in answer to her prayer, cast an evil spirit from her:

O woman, Great is thy faith; then be it unto thee, Even as thou wilt. And from that very

hour