SPECIAL EDITION: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Believe it or not, it wasn’t until I read about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that I understood what Neil Diamond was referring to in his “Longfellow Serenade”.  Oh, I’d heard about HWL and knew that he’d written “Hiawatha”, you know . . .  from the shores of Gitche Gumee . . . (which is really all I know of the poem), and Paul Revere’s Ride, but I had no idea of the scope of his popularity and influence on our culture.  Neither did Blaine.  And we also had no idea of his genius!  As you’ll read, the man started college as a young boy of 14 and during his lifetime, was able to master seven languages – English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and I couldn’t seem to discover which other ones.  Weird.  Everyone says he did, but no one says which ones. . . .

Anyway, below is some information about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that I gleaned from the Maine Historical Society’s website, as well as a few other sources.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a commanding figure in the cultural life of nineteenth-century America. Born in Portland, Maine in 1807, he became a national literary figure by the 1850s, and a world-famous personality by the time of his death in 1882. He was a traveler, a linguist, and a romantic who identified with the great traditions of European literature and thought. At the same time, he was rooted in American life and history, which charged his imagination with untried themes and made him ambitious for success.

The following four pages trace the major developments of Longfellow’s life from his youth in Portland where he first demonstrated his literary talents, through his years studying languages in Europe and teaching at Bowdoin College, to his move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he taught at Harvard, married Fanny Appleton, became a father, and wrote many of his most enduring poems; and finally into his elder years as both a celebrity poet and a grieving widower.

At 13 Longfellow published his first poem in the “Portland Gazette,” signing it simply “HENRY.” The poem, “The Battle of Lovell’s Pond,” was a tale of battle between colonists and Indians; it appeared on the front page of the “Gazette.” There was no praise forthcoming, for no one in the family (except his sister Anne with whom he had shared his secret) realized that their Henry had written the poem. Later that evening while at a friend’s house, he overheard the father say to another friend how terrible the poem was. Young Henry was devastated but it did not put a stop to his literary aspirations.

The next year, Henry passed the entrance exam for Maine’s first college, Bowdoin College in Brunswick. He and his brother Stephen enrolled at the same time, although due to Henry’s young age they both remained in Portland for their first year.

In 1822 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his older brother moved to Brunswick, Maine to start their sophomore year at Bowdoin College. They both graduated in 1825 (at the age of 18), in a class that included the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.

During his time at Bowdoin, Henry’s passion for writing grew. Stephen Longfellow, concerned about his son’s future, argued that Henry should take up the law. Henry was willing to acquiesce but he wrote: “I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it…if I can ever rise in the world, it must be by the exercise of my talents in the wide field of literature.” Stephen, a trustee of Bowdoin, was not deaf to his son’s enthusiasm and may have been instrumental in securing for him a professorship at the college in modern European languages — then a relatively new academic field. To prepare, Longfellow traveled and studied abroad.

His trip began in 1826 and lasted three years. It was the first of a number in his lifetime that would take him throughout Europe, lead to the acquisition or mastery of seven languages, and introduce him to both classical literatures and the living authors of many countries.

From this first trip also came his first youthful book and some indication of his literary temperament. It was a meditative travelogue called Outre Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea (1835).

In Outre Mer Longfellow filters his experience through the work of other writers – in this case Washington Irving’s travel sketches and Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Edgar Allan Poe later accused Longfellow of plagiarizing, but it is clear that Longfellow’s use of literary models came from a deep sense of his participation in a universal fellowship of art: to borrow and imitate was to enrich and amplify his own vision. He was, we might say, a completely literary man: imaginatively engaged with works of literary genius; generous to other writers, whom he translated and published regularly; and in love with the act of writing and the power of language. “Study of languages…” he wrote to his family on that first trip to Europe, “is like being born again.”

Longfellow began teaching French, Spanish, and Italian at Bowdoin in 1829. He soon married Mary Potter of Portland, began to write critical essays, and published six foreign language textbooks. It was enough to earn him the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard College, which he accepted in 1834, beginning a long association with the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Longfellow, however, always retained his ties to family and home in Maine.

To improve his language skills before taking on the new position at Harvard, he and his wife and two friends left for Europe in 1835. It was a crucial turning point. On this trip life’s lessons fell hard on Longfellow. His young wife, Mary, died of complications following a miscarriage. After sending her body back to Cambridge for later burial, he continued his journey in a near suicidal depression, hoping that travel might dispel his cares. Solace did eventually come, but with it a new form of anguish. A chance meeting in the Swiss Alps brought Longfellow together with the wealthy Appleton family of Boston. It was then he met and fell in love with their daughter, the stylish and beautiful Frances (Fanny). Fanny Appleton was the great love of Longfellow’s life, but she did not return that love for seven years.

Bereaved and spurned, Longfellow returned to Cambridge in December 1836 to take up his teaching post. He was almost thirty years of age. The true beginning of Longfellow’s creative life dates from this moment, perhaps because he had matured, or perhaps because he had glimpsed the real depths of human experience. In the next fifteen years he wrote all the works on which his extraordinary and nearly instantaneous fame came to rest. 

Meanwhile, the successful poet also worked full time at Harvard University, lectured, and directed the Modern Languages department. Because the study of foreign languages was so new in America, Longfellow had to write his own textbooks.  The department was meant to consist of four men teaching in their native languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and German. When a position was vacant, Henry had to fill in. Frustrated with his situation, Longfellow wrote to his father in September of 1839, “But my work here grows quite intolerable; and unless they make some change, I will leave them, with or without anything to do. I will not consent to have my life crushed out of me so. I had rather live a while on bread and water.” Longfellow managed to tolerate the situation for another 15 years.

His popularity as a poet continued to grow. The great American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had been a Bowdoin classmate of Longfellow and who became his life-long friend, wrote: “I read your poems over and over . . . nothing equal to some of them was ever written in this world.” There followed Poems on Slavery (1842), the anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845), Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), the novel Kavanagh (1849), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Clever marketing, often initiated by the poet himself, expanded the audience for all these works until Longfellow had become one of the best selling and most widely read authors in the world.

His early fame and persistent wooing finally led Fanny to relent, and they were married in 1843. Craigie House, the Cambridge residence most closely associated with the mature Longfellow, was a wedding gift from Fanny’s father. Henry and Fanny had six children: Charles, Ernest, Fanny, Alice, Edith, and Anne Allegra. The infant Fanny was the only one who did not survive to adulthood: she took ill when she was sixteen months old and died a few days later. The Longfellows raised their children at Craigie House and formed the warm family circle that, through its reflection in many poems, became a kind of national symbol for domestic love, the innocence of childhood, and the pleasure of material comfort.

It was at Craigie House, too, that Longfellow’s famous circle of friends and acquaintances came – Emerson, Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Sumner, Charles Eliot Norton, James Russell Lowell – as well as thousands of unknown visitors, for whom the house was a kind of shrine.

By 1854 Longfellow was able to resign his teaching post at Harvard; he had become, at age forty-seven, one of America’s first self-sustaining authors. For the next seven years, Henry was able to pour his energies into his writing, unimpeded by teaching duties and supported by the love of his family.

The last and somewhat diminished stage of Longfellow’s career began in 1861 with the tragic death of his wife Fanny. In an accident on July 9, 1861 at the Longfellow’s Cambridge home, Fanny’s gauzy clothing caught fire and she was enveloped in flames. She died the next day. Exactly how the accident occurred is unclear; Fanny may have inadvertently ignited her dress with a candle she was using to melt sealing wax, or she may have stepped on a self-lighting match. In his futile efforts to put the fire out, Longfellow burned his hands and face. He may have worn the beard he subsequently grew that gave him the sage, avuncular look reproduced in so many later paintings and photographs, such as the famous Julia Margaret Cameron image, to hide his facial scars. A month after Fanny’s death, on August 18th, 1861, Longfellow gave voice to his despair in a letter to his late wife’s sister, Mary Appleton Mackintosh. He wrote, “How I am alive after what my eyes have seen, I know not. I am at least patient, if not resigned; and thank God hourly – as I have from the beginning – for the beautiful life we led together, and that I loved her more and more to the end.” It was 18 years before he wrote “The Cross of Snow,” his only poem that deals directly with his grief.

The Civil War began in the same year of Fanny’s death, and in 1863, Longfellow’s son Charley ran off to join the fighting. Charley knew his father disapproved, but went anyway. He wrote a letter to his father saying, “I have tried to resist the temptation of going without your leave but cannot any longer.” Twice during the war Henry was called to Washington to care for his son — once because of illness and once due to injury. Charley survived and spent much of his adult life traveling the world. 

After Fanny’s death, Longfellow slowed considerably in writing original poems. The greatest part of his creative energy went instead into the translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, one of the great monuments of world literature, as well as a prolonged meditation on the spiritual power of love to overcome death. It was published in 1867.

Though he continued to write fine verse, what were to be Longfellow’s most famous works were done. His fame itself, however, continued to grow. Honors of every kind were bestowed on him in Europe and America; he was received by heads of state, including Queen Victoria, who read and appreciated his work; he became acquainted with Tennyson, Ruskin, Gladstone, Whitman, and even Oscar Wilde.

Longfellow’s seventieth birthday, in 1877, became a national celebration. When he turned 72, he received a very special gift: a chair that bore a brass plate on the seat with an inscription: To the author of “The Village Blacksmith,” This chair made from the wood of the spreading chestnut tree is presented as an expression of grateful regard and veneration by the children of Cambridge, who with their friends join in the best wishes and congratulations on this anniversary.

In March, 1882, Longfellow had developed severe stomach pains caused by acute peritonitis. With the aid of opium and his friends and family who were with him, he endured the pain for several days before succumbing on March 24, 1882. At the time of his death, he was one of the most successful writers in America, with an estate worth an estimated $356,000.    (Just under $9million in purchasing power today!)

The often quoted phrases “into every life some rain must fall” and “ships that pass in the night” are lines that originated in two of Henry’s poems. Two additional quotes – “Music is the universal language of mankind.”    And   “In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

 Henry is the only American to be honored with a bust in Westminster Abbey in London, England. His marble bust was placed in the Poet’s Corner in 1884, and stands among the monuments to other world-renowned authors and poets such as Dickens, Chaucer, and Browning.

One of Henry’s students at Harvard University was Henry David Thoreau.

And I’ve added a sampling of three of his more familiar poems, in case you’re interested in reading some of his work.

Paul Revere’s Ride commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775, although with significant inaccuracies. It was first published in the January 1861 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When be came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem (Personally, I would describe an epic poem as being a novella or novel in poetic form – like “The Odessy” – because they’re very long!) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his love for Minnehaha, a Dakota woman. Events in the story are set in the Pictured Rocks area on the south shore of Lake Superior.

On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
O’er the water pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset.
  Fiercely the red sun descending
Burned his way along the heavens,
Set the sky on fire behind him,
As war-parties, when retreating,
Burn the prairies on their war-trail;
And the moon, the Night-sun, eastward,
Suddenly starting from his ambush,
Followed fast those bloody footprints,
Followed in that fiery war-trail,
With its glare upon his features.
  And Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
Spake these words to Hiawatha:
“Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather,
Megissogwon, the Magician,
Manito of Wealth and Wampum,
Guarded by his fiery serpents,
Guarded by the black pitch-water.
You can see his fiery serpents,
The Kenabeek, the great serpents,
Coiling, playing in the water;
You can see the black pitch-water
Stretching far away beyond them,
To the purple clouds of sunset!
  “He it was who slew my father,
By his wicked wiles and cunning,
When he from the moon descended,
When he came on earth to seek me.
He, the mightiest of Magicians,
Sends the fever from the marshes,
Sends the pestilential vapors,
Sends the poisonous exhalations,
Sends the white fog from the fen-lands,
Sends disease and death among us!
  “Take your bow, O Hiawatha,
Take your arrows, jasper-headed,
Take your war-club, Puggawaugun,
And your mittens, Minjekahwun,
And your birch-canoe for sailing,
And the oil of Mishe-Nahma,
So to smear its sides, that swiftly 
You may pass the black pitch-water;
Slay this merciless magician,
Save the people from the fever
That he breathes across the fen-lands,
And avenge my father’s murder!”
  Straightway then my Hiawatha
Armed himself with all his war-gear,
Launched his birch-canoe for sailing;
With his palm its sides he patted,
Said with glee, “Cheemaun, my darling,
O my Birch-canoe! leap forward,
Where you see the fiery serpents,
Where you see the black pitch-water!”
  Forward leaped Cheemaun exulting,
And the noble Hiawatha
Sang his war-song wild and woful,
And above him the war-eagle,
The Keneu, the great war-eagle,
Master of all fowls with feathers,
Screamed and hurtled through the heavens.
  Soon he reached the fiery serpents,
The Kenabeek, the great serpents,
Lying huge upon the water,
Sparkling, rippling in the water,
Lying coiled across the passage,
With their blazing crests uplifted,
Breathing fiery fogs and vapors,
So that none could pass beyond them.
  But the fearless Hiawatha
Cried aloud, and spake in this wise:
“Let me pass my way, Kenabeek,
Let me go upon my journey!”
And they answered, hissing fiercely,
With their fiery breath made answer:
“Back, go back! O Shaugodaya!
Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!”
  Then the angry Hiawatha
Raised his mighty bow of ash-tree,
Seized his arrows, jasper-headed,
Shot them fast among the serpents;
Every twanging of the bow-string
Was a war-cry and a death-cry,
Every whizzing of an arrow
Was a death-song of Kenabeek.
  Weltering in the bloody water,
Dead lay all the fiery serpents,
And among them Hiawatha
Harmless sailed, and cried exulting:
“Onward, O Cheemaun, my darling!
Onward to the black pitch-water!”
  Then he took the oil of Nahma,
And the bows and sides anointed,
Smeared them well with oil, that swiftly
He might pass the black pitch-water.
  All night long he sailed upon it,
Sailed upon that sluggish water,
Covered with its mould of ages,
Black with rotting water-rushes,
Rank with flags and leaves of lilies,
Stagnant, lifeless, dreary, dismal,
Lighted by the shimmering moonlight,
And by will-o’-the-wisps illumined,
Fires by ghosts of dead men kindled,
In their weary night-encampments.
  All the air was white with moonlight,
All the water black with shadow,
And around him the Suggema,
The mosquito, sang his war-song,
And the fire-flies, Wah-wah-taysee,
Waved their torches to mislead him;
And the bull-frog, the Dahinda,
Thrust his head into the moonlight,
Fixed his yellow eyes upon him,
Sobbed and sank beneath the surface;
And anon a thousand whistles,
Answered over all the fen-lands,
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Far off on the reedy margin,
Heralded the hero’s coming.
  Westward thus fared Hiawatha,
Toward the realm of Megissogwon,
Toward the land of the Pearl-Feather,
Till the level moon stared at him,
In his face stared pale and haggard,
Till the sun was hot behind him,
Till it burned upon his shoulders,
And before him on the upland
He could see the Shining Wigwam
Of the Manito of Wampum,
Of the mightiest of Magicians.
  Then once more Cheemaun he patted,
To his birch-canoe said, “Onward!”
And it stirred in all its fibres,
And with one great bound of triumph
Leaped across the water-lilies,
Leaped through tangled flags and rushes,
And upon the beach beyond them
Dry-shod landed Hiawatha.
  Straight he took his bow of ash-tree,
On the sand one end he rested,
With his knee he pressed the middle,
Stretched the faithful bow-string tighter,
Took an arrow, jasper-headed,
Shot it at the Shining Wigwam,
Sent it singing as a herald,
As a bearer of his message,
Of his challenge loud and lofty:
“Come forth from your lodge, Pearl-Feather!
Hiawatha waits your coming!”
  Straightway from the Shining Wigwam
Came the mighty Megissogwon,
Tall of stature, broad of shoulder,
Dark and terrible in aspect,
Clad from head to foot in wampum,
Armed with all his warlike weapons,
Painted like the sky of morning,
Streaked with crimson, blue, and yellow,
Crested with great eagle-feathers,
Streaming upward, streaming outward.
  “Well I know you, Hiawatha!”
Cried he in a voice of thunder,
In a tone of loud derision.
“Hasten back, O Shaugodaya!
Hasten back among the women,
Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!
I will slay you as you stand there,
As of old I slew her father!”
  But my Hiawatha answered,
Nothing daunted, fearing nothing:
“Big words do not smite like war-clubs,
Boastful breath is not a bow-string,
Taunts are not so sharp as arrows,
Deeds are better things than words are,
Actions mightier than boastings!”
  Then began the greatest battle
That the sun had ever looked on,
That the war-birds ever witnessed.
All a Summer’s day it lasted,
From the sunrise to the sunset;
For the shafts of Hiawatha
Harmless hit the shirt of wampum,
Harmless fell the blows he dealt it
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Harmless fell the heavy war-club;
It could dash the rocks asunder,
But it could not break the meshes
Of that magic shirt of wampum.
  Till at sunset Hiawatha,
Leaning on his bow of ash-tree,
Wounded, weary, and desponding,
With his mighty war-club broken,
With his mittens torn and tattered,
And three useless arrows only,
Paused to rest beneath a pine-tree,
From whose branches trailed the mosses,
And whose trunk was coated over
With the Dead-man’s Moccasin-leather,
With the fungus white and yellow.
  Suddenly from the boughs above him
Sang the Mama, the woodpecker:
“Aim your arrows, Hiawatha,
At the head of Megissogwon,
Strike the tuft of hair upon it,
At their roots the long black tresses;
There alone can he be wounded!”
  Winged with feathers, tipped with jasper,
Swift flew Hiawatha’s arrow,
Just as Megissogwon, stooping,
Raised a heavy stone to throw it.
Full upon the crown it struck him,
At the roots of his long tresses,
And he reeled and staggered forward,
Plunging like a wounded bison,
Yes, like Pezhekee, the bison,
When the snow is on the prairie.
  Swifter flew the second arrow,
In the pathway of the other,
Piercing deeper than the other,
Wounding sorer than the other;
And the knees of Megissogwon
Shook like windy reeds beneath him,
Bent and trembled like the rushes.
  But the third and latest arrow
Swiftest flew, and wounded sorest,
And the mighty Megissogwon
Saw the fiery eyes of Pauguk,
Saw the eyes of Death glare at him,
Heard his voice call in the darkness;
At the feet of Hiawatha
Lifeless lay the great Pearl-Feather,
Lay the mightiest of Magicians.
  Then the grateful Hiawatha
Called the Mama, the woodpecker,
From his perch among the branches
Of the melancholy pine-tree,
And, in honor of his service,
Stained with blood the tuft of feathers
On the little head of Mama;
Even to this day he wears it,
Wears the tuft of crimson feathers,
As a symbol of his service.
  Then he stripped the shirt of wampum
From the back of Megissogwon,
As a trophy of the battle,
As a signal of his conquest.
On the shore he left the body,
Half on land and half in water,
In the sand his feet were buried,
And his face was in the water.
And above him, wheeled and clamored
The Keneu, the great war-eagle,
Sailing round in narrower circles,
Hovering nearer, nearer, nearer.
  From the wigwam Hiawatha
Bore the wealth of Megissogwon,
All his wealth of skins and wampum,
Furs of bison and of beaver,
Furs of sable and of ermine,
Wampum belts and strings and pouches,
Quivers wrought with beads of wampum,
Filled with arrows, silver-headed.
  Homeward then he sailed exulting,
Homeward through the black pitch-water,
Homeward through the weltering serpents,
With the trophies of the battle,
With a shout and song of triumph.
  On the shore stood old Nokomis,
On the shore stood Chibiabos,
And the very strong man, Kwasind,
Waiting for the hero’s coming,
Listening to his songs of triumph.
And the people of the village
Welcomed him with songs and dances,
Made a joyous feast, and shouted:
“Honor be to Hiawatha!
He has slain the great Pearl-Feather,
Slain the mightiest of Magicians,
Him, who sent the fiery fever,
Sent the white fog from the fen-lands,
Sent disease and death among us!”
  Ever dear to Hiawatha
Was the memory of Mama!
And in token of his friendship,
As a mark of his remembrance,
He adorned and decked his pipe-stem
With the crimson tuft of feathers,
With the blood-red crest of Mama.
But the wealth of Megissogwon,
All the trophies of the battle,
He divided with his people,
Shared it equally among them.

And that’s just the middle of the poem.  There are nine more sections like this before it, and thirteen more after!  I had no idea!  And when this “book” came out in 1855, he sold 50,000 copies almost immediately.

Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie is another epic poem published in 1847. The poem follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel, set during the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians.  (Remember when we talked about that two years ago during our time in the Canadian Maritimes?  And some of the Acadians ended up in Louisiana?)

The idea for the poem came from Longfellow’s friend Nathaniel Hawthorne (of “The Scarlet Letter” and “The House of the Seven Gables” fame). It became Longfellow’s most famous work in his lifetime and remains one of his most popular and enduring works. The poem had a powerful effect in defining both Acadian history and identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

      Prologue

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,–
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,
List to the mournful tradition, still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

     Part I

Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand-Pré.
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of Minas,
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at
anchor.
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labor
Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the
morning.
Now from the country around, from the farms and neighboring
hamlets,
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants.
Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk
Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous meadows,
Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in the
greensward,
Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the highway.
Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were silenced.
Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy groups at the
house-doors
Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped together.
Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and feasted;
For with this simple people, who lived like brothers together,
All things were held in common, and what one had was another’s.
Yet under Benedict’s roof hospitality seemed more abundant:
For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father;
Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome and
gladness
Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she gave it. 

  Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard,
Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal.
There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the notary
seated;
There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.
Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the
beehives,
Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of
waistcoats.
Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his
snow-white
Hair, as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the fiddler
Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the
embers.
Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle,
Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunquerque,
And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music.
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;
Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them.
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict’s daughter!
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith! 

  So passed the morning away.  And lo! with a summons sonorous
Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum
beat.
Thronged erelong was the church with men.  Without, in the
churchyard,
Waited the women.  They stood by the graves, and hung on the
headstones
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest.
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among
them
Entered the sacred portal.  With loud and dissonant clangor
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and
casement,–
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the
soldiers.
Then uprose their commander, and spake from the steps of the
altar,
Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission.
“You are convened this day,” he said, “by his Majesty’s orders.
Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered his
kindness,
Let your own hearts reply!  To my natural make and my temper
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous.
Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch;
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all
kinds
Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this
province
Be transported to other lands.  God grant you may dwell there
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people!
Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty’s pleasure!”
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer,
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones
Beats down the farmer’s corn in the field and shatters his
windows,
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the
house-roofs,
Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures;
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the
speaker.
Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then rose
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger,
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the door-way.
Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce imprecations
Rang through the house of prayer; and high o’er the heads of the
others
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the blacksmith,
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows.
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion; and wildly he
shouted,–
“Down with the tyrants of England! we never have sworn them
allegiance!
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes and our
harvests!”
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of a soldier
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to the pavement. 

  In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention,
Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of the altar.
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed into silence
All that clamorous throng; and thus he spake to his people;
Deep were his tones and solemn; in accents measured and mournful
Spake he, as, after the tocsin’s alarum, distinctly the clock
strikes.
“What is this that ye do, my children? what madness has seized
you?
Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and taught you,
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another!
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and
privations?
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness?
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane
it
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred?
Lo! where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you!
See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion!
Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ‘O Father, forgive
them!’
Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked assail us,
Let us repeat it now, and say, ‘O Father, forgive them!'”
Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of his
people
Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate
outbreak,
While they repeated his prayer, and said, “O Father, forgive
them!” 

  Then came the evening service.  The tapers gleamed from the
altar.
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest and the people
responded,
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the Ave Maria
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, with
devotion translated,
Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to heaven. 

  Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, and on
all sides
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women and children.
Long at her father’s door Evangeline stood, with her right hand
Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, that,
descending,
Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, and roofed
each
Peasant’s cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned its windows.
Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the table;
There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with
wild-flowers;
There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought from
the dairy,
And, at the head of the board, the great arm-chair of the farmer.
Thus did Evangeline wait at her father’s door, as the sunset
Threw the long shadows of trees o’er the broad ambrosial meadows.
Ah! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen,
And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial ascended,–
Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!
Then, all-forgetful of self, she wandered into the village,
Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of the women,
As o’er the darkening fields with lingering steps they departed,
Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their
children.
Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors
Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from
Sinai.
Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus sounded. 

  Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered.
All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the windows
Stood she, and listened and looked, till, overcome by emotion,
“Gabriel!” cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no answer
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave of the
living.
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her
father.
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was the supper
untasted,
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phantoms of
terror.
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her chamber.
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate rain fall
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by the window.
Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing
thunder
Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world he
created!
Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice of
Heaven;
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered till
morning.

There are 6 more parts to this epic poem. 

I couldn’t find how many poems he published, but it must have been quite a few.  Remarkable man that most of us know next to nothing about.  However, if you’ve read this, you are no longer uninformed.  😊