Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1880-02-13

these are the Earlier Poems,' prefaced
as follows:
.'Some have found their way into
schools and seem to be successful. Others
lead vagabond and precarious existence
in the corners of newspapers or have
changed their names and run away to
seek their fortunes beyand the sea. | say,
with the Bishop of Avranches on simi-
lar occasion: 4 cannot be displeased
to see these children of mine, which l
neglected, and almost exposed, brought
from their wanderings in lanes and alleys
and safely housed in order to gofortli the
into the world together i'll more decor
ous garb.
Tho poets other publications have been
| Ballads, 1871 Poems on Slavery and The
! Spanish Student, 1913: Belfry of Bru-
ges. The Waif and The Estray 1.-TWO COM
pilations). 1916 : Evangeline. 1917 Sea
| side and Fireside, 1919 Golden Legend,
| 1851 Poets and Poetry of Europe Hi
awatha 1855 Courtship of Miles Stand
! ish, 1853 Tales of Waysidc Inn, 1868;
and the translation Of Dante /; the Hang
ing of the Crane; keramos, and Moritun
Salutamus III later years. The aggregate
circulation of Mr. Longfellow's books in
this country has probably been largely in
excess of one million copies. In Eng
land he vies in popularity with the Poet
Laureate and his poems have been
translated into several foreign languages.
OF his unbonnded popularity the cause
is not far to seek He voices IN simple
and musical numbers a universal scnti-
ment of the race. The feelings, the
hopes. the aspirations OF humanity lind
expression in his verse. Ambition finds
its fit expression in Excelsior :" the sad
ness and sweetness of death IN The
Reaper and Flowers :" tho Horatian
'.Ars Tonga, vita brevis" i'll The Psalm of
Life = the longing for the better life in
''Sandalphon = and heroism IN The
Cumberland" And not only does he
thus express universal sentiment but
he consoles and strengthens. As ho says
in the Prelude b the Voices of the
Night
Look. then, into thine heart and write,
Yes. into Life's deep stream;
All forms of sorrow and delight.
All solemn Voices of the Night,
rhat can soothe thee. or afiright-
Re these henceforth Thy themei'
And We can apostroplizc him in his
own verse
weary hearts by thee are lifted,
Struggling souls 10y the, are strengthened,
Clouds OF fear asundeT rliieI,
Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted.
Lives, like days in summer, heightened!
Through all his verse runs Il tender
thread of pathos-not n mawkish senti-
mentality nor an affected, Byronic sorrow,
but realization and expression of the
awful solemnity Of human life, over
shadowed by sorrow-tho shadow of it
self-and progressing, tempcst-tossed and
Oh. III IN,
this respect his genius is akin to that of
Henry Vaughan. the Silurian poet as lie
called himself-whom We are sure he
loves, for he has twice copied (once in
Hyperion and again i'll the Wai) that
gloriously beautiful poem of the Silu-
rian's which has made death lovely
..They are all gone into world OF Hight.
And | alone SIT lingering here;
Their very memory Is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doih clear"
His pathos is of the kind which finds
a responsive echo in every human breast.
He does not, like Carlyle, make the
tomb his inexpugnablc fortress :" but his
verse is permeatcd with the pathos Of ma
ture, of childhood
o lille feet . that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
|. nearer to the waysde inn
Where toll shall cease and rest begin,
Ain weary, thinking OF your road!
of hope deferred, of the sadness Of ex-
istence and the certainty of death. And
with the sorrow is the sweet hopo Of rest
and home.
Gods acre, Yes, that blessed name imparis
Comfort 10 those who in the grave have so"n
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life. alas no more their own.
Into It's burrows shall We all he cast,
In has lttraf 70 f1tnf We
Al the great harvest when the archangers blast
Shall wnnow, Ike u fan. the chafi and grain
Then shall the good stand IN Immortal bloom,
In the fair garden of that second birth
And each bright blossom mingle lis perfume
With that Of flowers which never b!ocnod on
earth.
In the Middle Ages men lived and
fought and loved with 4 tremendous vital
ity which at last spent itself Of its own
force Life was esteemed Of little value;
tho hills from tho top Of nsarly every
one of which hung the pendulous body of
n medieval human being suspended from
n gallows) arcrc hills, and nothing more,
and the rivers simply rivers. There were
no sermons in stones, books in the run
nlng brooks In this age We, with more
sluggish pulse and less vital force, are to n
certain extent returning to the Greek
pantheistic sentiment. incarnatin9 Nature
and investing her with human interest
and human pathos 1t is thus that
Longfellow treats Nature; and hardly in
our day has she been so gloriously ap-
parclled as in tho investiture he casts
upon her. We had marked for quota
ton in this connection many passages,
particularly in Evangeline and Hiawatha,
but our narrowing space warns us to hur-
ry on and We reluctantly omit them.
IL. l. Ill / oil
lows verse is his love for humanity, from
lowest to highest Nothing pertaining to
man is foreign to him. In noble verse
he expressed his sympathy for the slave;
and his lofty poem on the death OF tho
great Duke made that of the Poet Lau-
reate seem poor and tame by comparison.
A broad and deep humanitarianism runs
through all his verse. Not unmindful of
tho sins and sorrows Of humanity, tho es-
sential dignity of human nature is M
evcr-present theme Loving and loved,
his verse comes like benediction to the
heart. Unlike his great contemporary.
under the shndow of no imperial throne,
he Is the Poet Laureate of Humanity.
In his noble essay ON the Art of Poetry
Sir Philip Sidney pointed out with state
" eloquence the derivation Of the word
Surely, then, Longfellow is entitled to
the word in its noblest sense The com
monest scenes of everyday life, the most
ordinary vocations, are distilled III his
alembic into something rich and rare.
The famous ropewalk is simply narrow
room so long that looking from either end
gives the same effect as that produced by
glancing through the wrong end of II
4 r. IL
not the strictly utilitnrlan room but
Two fair mailcns In = wing.
Like whlto doves upon the wing;
| the rope walker the well ON the fnirn
the sexton tolliug the bell the gallows-
tree the school-boy with his kite ships
and wrecks
Al these scenes do behold,
These, and many left untold.
Ia thai building long and low
While the wheel goes round ana round
With u drOwsy, dreamy sound.
And the spinners backward GO
A host of other instances might be
cited, for what We have said is illustrated
on almost every page of his writings.
| Wordsworth is the great apostle oi every
| day life, but not always are those poems
/ Of his
Trailing cloud. Of glory"
OF every pyramid ihtfo IL VAST "a
panse of arid desert Burns wrote OF
common things with matchlcas puthos
and naturalness and truth and his con
temporary, the recluse Of Olney, wrot e
with unequulled purity and grace On such
II subject as Tho Sofa. In way en-
iirely different but not less admirable oar
poet raises the real to the ideal, the com
monplncc to the ethereal realms Of beauty,
the low and unregardcd to the summit OF
the heaven kissing hills.
For the music of his numbers nnd the
exquisite grace Of his verse, for bean'y
Of thought and elegance Of expression,
Lomgfellow is unrivalled by any living
poet. No such false rhymes rs mar the
manly verse Of the great Quaker poet and
even the polished utteranccso of Bryantarr
Il. hr fnnnd in his works md hIs rhythnl