Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings (Library of America)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (Editor)

Overview

No American writer of the nineteenth century was more universally enjoyed and admired than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His works were extraordinary bestsellers for their era, achieving fame both here and abroad. Now, for the first time in over twenty-five years, The Library of America offers a full-scale literary portrait of America’s greatest popular poet.

Here are the poems that created an American mythology: Evangeline in the forest primeval, Hiawatha by the shores of Gitche Gumee, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, the wreck of the Hesperus, the village blacksmith under the spreading chestnut tree, the strange courtship of Miles Standish, the maiden Priscilla and the hesitant John Alden; verses like “A Psalm of Life” and “The Children’s Hour,” whose phrases and characters have become part of the culture. Here as well, along with the public antislavery poems, are the sparer, darker lyrics—"The Fire of Drift-Wood," “Mezzo Cammin,” “Snow-Flakes,” and many others—that show a more austere aspect of Longfellow’s poetic gift.

Erudite and fluent in many languages, Longfellow was endlessly fascinated with the byways of history and the curiosities of legend. As a verse storyteller he had no peer, whether in the great book-length narratives such as Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha (both included in full) or the stories collected in Tales of a Wayside Inn (reprinted here in a generous selection). His many poems on literary themes, such as his moving homages to Dante and Chaucer, his verse translations from Lope de Vega, Heinrich Heine, and Michelangelo, and his ambitious verse dramas, notably The New England Tragedies (also complete), are remarkable in their range and ambition.

As a special feature, this volume restores to print Longfellow’s novel Kavanagh, a study of small-town life and literary ambition that was praised by Emerson as an important contribution to the development of American fiction. A selection of essays rounds out of the volume and provides testimony of Longfellow’s concern with creating an American national literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781883011857
Publisher:	Library of America
Publication date:	08/28/2000
Series:	Library of America Series , #118
Pages:	825
Sales rank:	433,380
Product dimensions:	5.32(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.24(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was the most popular and admired American poet of the nineteenth century. Born in Portland, Maine, and educated at Bowdoin College, Longfellow’s ambition was always to become a writer; but until mid-life his first profession was the teaching rather than the production of literature, at his alma mater (1829-35) and then at Harvard (1836-54). His teaching career was punctuated by two extended study-tours of Europe, during which Longfellow made himself fluent in all the major Romance and Germanic languages. Thanks to a fortunate marriage and the growing popularity of his work, from his mid-thirties onwards Longfellow, ensconced in a comfortable Cambridge mansion, was able to devote an increasingly large fraction of his energies to the long narrative historical and mythic poems that made him a household word, especially Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863, 1872, 1873). Versatile as well as prolific, Longfellow also won fame as a writer of short ballads and lyrics, and experimented in the essay, the short story, the novel, and the verse drama. Taken as a whole, Longfellow’s writings show a breadth of literary learning, an understanding of western languages and cultures, unmatched by any American writer of his time.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

from
THE VOICES OF THE NIGHT

The Spirit of Poetry

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless
    laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland,where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.

    And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, from the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

Hymn to the Night

[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
    Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
    From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
    Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
    As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
    The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
    Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
    My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
    From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
    What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
    And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
    Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
    The best-beloved Night!

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
    Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
    Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
    Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
    Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
    With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
    Learn to labor and to wait.

The Light of Stars

The night is come, but not too soon;
    And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
    But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
    To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
    The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above
    A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
    When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
    The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
    And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
    And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
    But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
    To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,
    He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
    And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
    That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
    Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
    And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is
    To suffer and be strong.

Footsteps of Angels

When the hours of Day are numbered,
    And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
    To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
    And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
    Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed
    Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
    Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
    Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
    Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
    Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
    Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,
    Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
    And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep
    Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
    Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me
    With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
    Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended,
    Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
    Breathing from her lips of air.

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
    All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only
    Such as these have lived and died!

Table of Contents

from The Voices of the Night
The Spirit of Poetry	1
Hymn to the Night	2
A Psalm of Life	3
The Light of Stars	4
Footsteps of Angels	6
from Ballads and Other Poems
The Skeleton in Armor	8
The Wreck of the Hesperus	12
The Village Blacksmith	15
It Is Not Always May	17
The Rainy Day	18
God's-Acre	18
To the River Charles	19
The Goblet of Life	20
Excelsior	22
from Poems on Slavery
The Slave's Dream	24
The Slave Singing at Midnight	25
The Witnesses	26
The Warning	27
from The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems
The Belfry of Bruges	29
A Gleam of Sunshine	31
The Arsenal at Springfield	33
Rain in Summer	35
To a Child	37
The Occultation of Orion	43
The Bridge	45
To the Driving Cloud	47
The Day Is Done	48
Afternoon in February	50
The Old Clock on the Stairs	51
The Arrow and the Song	53
The Evening Star	53
Autumn	54
Dante	54
Curfew	55
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie	57
from The Seaside and the Fireside
The Building of the Ship	116
Seaweed	127
Chrysaor	128
Twilight	129
Sir Humphrey Gilbert	130
The Lighthouse	131
The Fire of Drift-Wood	133
Resignation	135
The Builders	136
Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass	138
The Open Window	139
The Song of Hiawatha	141
from The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems
The Courtship of Miles Standish	280
Birds of Passage	323
The Ladder of St. Augustine	324
The Phantom Ship	326
The Warden of the Cinque Ports	328
Haunted Houses	329
In the Churchyard at Cambridge	331
The Emperor's Bird's-Nest	331
The Two Angels	333
Daylight and Moonlight	335
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport	335
My Lost Youth	337
The Ropewalk	340
Daybreak	342
The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz	343
Children	344
Sandalphon	345
Poems 1859-1863
The Children's Hour	347
Enceladus	348
The Cumberland	349
Snow-Flakes	351
A Day of Sunshine	351
Something Left Undone	352
Weariness	353
from Tales of a Wayside Inn
Part First
Prelude: The Wayside Inn	354
The Landlord's Tale: Paul Revere's Ride	362
Interlude	366
The Student's Tale: The Falcon of Ser Federigo	367
Interlude	375
The Spanish Jew's Tale: The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi	376
Interlude	378
The Sicilian's Tale: King Robert of Sicily	379
Interlude	385
The Musician's Tale: The Saga of King Olaf	386
Interlude	431
The Theologian's Tale: Torquemada	433
Interlude	439
The Poet's Tale: The Birds of Killingworth	440
Finale	446
from Part Second
The Spanish Jew's Talc: Kambalu	447
The Student's Tale: The Cobbler of Hagenau	450
The Theologian's Tale: The Legend Beautiful	456
from Part Third
The Spanish Jew's Tale: Azrael	460
The Sicilian's Tale: The Monk of Casal-Maggiore	461
Finale	469
from Flower-de-Luce
Palingenesis	472
Hawthorne	474
Christmas Bells	475
The Wind Over the Chimney	476
Killed at the Ford	478
Giotto's Tower	479
Divina Commedia	480
from Christus: A Mystery
from The Divine Tragedy
Mount Quarantania	483
The Tower of Magdala	485
Let Me Go Warm	695
The Sea Hath Its Pearls	696
Retribution	697
The Grave	697
Rondel	698
The Artist	699
To Vittoria Colonna	699
Dante	700
A Neapolitan Canzonet	700
Selected Prose
Kavanagh, A Tale	703
The Literary Spirit of Our Country	791
Table-Talk	796
Address on the Death of Washington Irving	800
Chronology	805
Note on the Texts	816
Notes	824
Index of Titles and First Lines	850

Editorial Reviews

"By the shore of Gitchee Gumee,/ By the shining Big-Sea-Water..." Between the Civil War and the Great Depression, Longfellow (1807-1882) was America's best-loved poet. An audience so broad it's now hard to imagine enjoyed his well-told, metrically innovative narrative poems, like The Song of Hiawatha; schoolchildren memorized, and adults enjoyed, his accessible, often sententious lyric verse. Longfellow's vast and various output also included many translations of Dante and other European poets, verse-drama and a collection of shorter narratives, Tales of a Wayside Inn. (In his day job at Harvard, he helped invent the study of comparative literature.) In search of a new audience for Longfellow, editor McClatchy, a poet and critic himself (Ten Commandments; Twenty Questions), has rightly assembled a very generous selection, including all Longfellow's most famous poems, and all his best (they're not the same). Here are Hiawatha, Evangeline, The Courtship of Miles Standish and "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Here, too, are some surprisingly powerful lyric and meditative poems--well made, deeply felt, and not much like the schoolhouse favorites. Among them are the ambitious, fast-moving "K ramos," which follows a potter's wheel around the world; metrical complexities like "The Rope-Walk" and "Snow-Flakes"; and the grief-charged sonnet "The Cross of Snow," about his long-dead wife. Longfellow's longtime residence in New England gave him a special gift for nautical themes--his poems about ships, sailing and the sea range from quick mood pieces to political allegories. Translations--an important part of his work--are also well represented. And historically minded readers will seek out his antislavery poems and his later verse on the Civil War. Near the end of the volume comes his nearly plotless--but thoroughly charming--Maine novella, Kavanagh. Though he may never regain his onetime prestige, Longfellow at his best was more fun, smarter, deeper, and a better craftsman than readers nowadays imagine; this hefty volume may finally let them know. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The Library of America had another banner year, producing collections of Scott Fitzgerald's first four books and this grand gathering of Wordsworth's poems, fiction, and essays. The volume is notable for bringing back into print the novel Kavanaugh, a Tale. (Classic Returns, LJ 11/15/00) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This collection, the first selection of Longfellow's work in more than 25 years, is generous, including broad selections of Longfellow's best known poems, as well as his novel...all in all this book is a pleasure. One doubts that Longfellow's preeminence will be rekindled by this new collection, but he is certainly well worth pondering once again.
—Christian Science Monitor

Williams