| Title | : | The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 1555 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1859 |
The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Reviews
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Longfellow uses diverse meters with ease. His best poems convey a wistful melancholic picaresque. His worst poems offer banal pieties. Many do both.
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Excellent. If you enjoy metered poetry and narrative poetry, then you will enjoy Longfellow. I understand why he was popular in his day - Longfellow is a fascinating story-teller and a talented poet (in the traditional aspects of meter and rhyme) who uses allusions and complex vocabulary that are educated while still being accessible. Longfellow is also a polyglot, translating poems from eight different languages (as well as other regional dialects for those languages).
Like all poets, when you read a complete works, some works are better than others. For Longfellow, "The Tales of Wayside Inn" was by far my favorite book (it includes the famous "Paul Revere" poem) with "The Song of Hiawatha" and "Evangeline" coming in close behind it.
Well worth the time to read. (It took 1.5 years, reading off and on, for me). Would recommend to anyone who has interest in American poetry or narrative poetry. -
I enjoyed every page. Longfellow is amazing.
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I did but expect over 2,000 pages of poetry (granted, I read a copy of this as an ebook, but still!). I did skip over here and there. I loved Longfellow's imagery of meadows and seas. There are some poems are very much appreciated, and some that I just didn't connect as well too.
“A Psalm of Life” (1839)
(*probably my favorite!)
What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist
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 Children’s Hour” (1863)
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
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 mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
“The Rainy Day” (1842)
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
“The Reapers and the Flowers” (1839)
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
“Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he;
“Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again.”
He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.
“My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,”
The Reaper said, and smiled;
“Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where He was once a child.
“They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear.”
And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.
Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
‘T was an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.
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Took me a long time to get through it all, but I kept finding other shorter, more absorbing books.
I enjoyed his poetry. Some of my favorites were:
A Psalm of Life
The Skeleton in Armor
The Wreck of the Hesperus
The Village Blacksmith
To the River Charles
The Spanish Student
A Gleam of Sunshine
Curfew
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
Haunted Houses
Oliver Basselin
The Ropewalk
The Children's Hour
A Day of Sunshine
The Bridge of Clouds
Christmas Bells
The Three Kings
The Chamber over the Gate
The Sifting of Peter
Mad River
Decoration Day
Christus: A Mystery
and 'the peasant leaves his plough afield' -
One of the most accessible 19th century poets.
“Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.” -
3.5 stars.
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I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Evangeline and Hiawatha, and being introduced to other work of Longfellow's poetry that I had not previously read
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leí The Village Blacksmith
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Much is perfect, some is tedious
I started reading Longfellow because The Saga of King Olaf was Theodore Roosevelt's favorite poem which he read every year when he was young. So I started there and then I read the whole book and it took me a year. Some of it is brilliant and awesome. and some of it is really tedious and religious and I couldn't wait to get through it. -
His words are powerful, and I sense timelessness in them. It's a huge collection, though, and I've found twice now that I lose my enjoyment of the poetry when I try to read straight through. I need to just read in snippets.
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Contains "The Arrow and the Song."
