The Portland daily press., 1882-02-28

or loss in hopeless search for her betrothed
lover and finding her try sting place only in old
age by the bedside of pestileDce; when we read
the song of Hiawatha, and see with what artis-
tic faithfulness he has wrought into verse, the
very wildness of which has in it a sound of the
woods, those poetic ideas which have haunted
the minds of all sensitive persons in connection
with the customs, costumes, character and for
tunes of the strange race OF aborigines, whom
our race has suppanted on this continent, we
can see that Mr. Longfellow is no less an Amer
lean poet, because so much of his inspiration
came as Whit of the old world over the sea.
This native material he has worked so we'll is
only SO much less abundant. Among the charac-
teristic excellences of Mr.. Longfellow as poet
his fidelity to the established canons of versif-
cation | have already spoken of. know the
liberties great masters of thought may take and
have taken with expression. l know the mod
ern taste that considers conformity to the reg
ularity of measurement, and the necessity OF
rhyme mere mechanical arts that degrade and
ensave the mind. L am aware that Emerson
himself among the order of great poets and
lacking general appreciation by his lawlessness
in conformiting to the established rules OF ex-
preston, has said:
mot metres but metre-making argument
makes poem, a thought SO passionate and
alive that like the spirit of plant or an ami
mall it has an architecture of its own and
adorns nature with new thing" know the
aesthetic craze that has ennobled the bowling
dervishes of song l know the fashion that in
sists that the metreless epigrams OF Walt
Whitman are noblest poetry, epigrams wherein
the terse sententiousness of the proverb gives
place to stately grandiloquence, which the
moment the music of the verse ceases becomes
ridiculous, just as on the stage tender ana
| pathetic passage is saved from being laughed at
by an accompaniment of solemn music, that
| lifts the listener into the required mood.
But Notwithstanding these eccentricities of
taste, Emerson himself confessed, that he ''re-
| called every good poem by its rhythm, and de-
| tected an unskillful writer by the poverty of
| his chimes" That art cannot be mere con-
| yentional or childish one, which in all Ian
| guages has charmed the human ear and stirred
| in the human soul the noblest enthusiasms and
the most heroic actions, nor can that be taw-
/ dry rhetorical trick unit to hamper tho
wings of genius which Homer and Dante,
Milton and Goethe found to be such further
| ance to the effectiveness and impressiveness OIL
| their grand speech.
Not little of his fame Mr.. Longfellow owes
| to the fact that he is great artist in the con-
struction of rhythm and rhyme Kindred to
| his susceptibility to poetic influences, the pro-
duct of fervid and impossible imagination,
| there is in him delicate sensitiveness to the
music of language know Of no writer, whose
verse has this relish of melody and music, who
has produced by the same kind of talent that
| makes great singer, as it were by sleight of
| tongue, those effects OF measured sequences
of sounds, which less happily endowed
l Wflb6IS HdkC GChioVou OJ euO
studied arrangement of dactyls and spondees,
all scanning correctly, but which some how
| will never sing themselve
There are lyrical effects produced on the ear
| by some of his stanzas, wherein the rhymes
and grand flow of the rhythm are as complete
as in Millions Lyeidas, while the structure OF
the verse is better balanced and more SYM
metrical. Only Tennyson's earlier odes have
the same delicate and facile grace.
Take this specimen from the "Quadroon
! Girl;
The SLAYER in the broad lagoon
Lay moored with idle sail,
He waited for the rising moon,
And for the evening gale.
Under the shore his boat was tied
| And all her listless crew
Watched the gray alligator glide
Into the still bayou.
Or this from the "Fire of Drftwood":
The windows rattling in their frames.
The ocean roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the pickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech
But why select from volumes, that lie on
every table, from songs read by the children OF
all English-speaking people, when from the
earliest products of glowing YOUTH to- the faith
/ fully wrought creations of an age that gives
| no token Of decay, all that he has written form
| one grand diapason of harmony, rich in the
| blending of varied melodies and show with
| what q masters hand
He touched the tender stops of various quills
With eager thoughts warbling his Doric lay.
TO make this inadequate sketch of the genius
| of Longfellow less incomplete, let me in line
speak of the elevation, purity and lofty piety
! of all that he has written. wherein can be
found, 'tno line which dying, he could wish to
! blot" Not in the slightest degree has he
enlarged the license the generous world always
| permits to genius TO excite prurient taste or
| corrupt the heart by the deineation of unregu-
1afad mn rpvnllinO in fhn olOriaS of art
in the beauties of an unconventional society, en-
bosomed in primitive nature, and amenable
! only to its laws. The loves of his heroes and
| heroines have been the pure domestic loves,
| out of which have grown the sanctitieS of
home, the pieties of the household, the orderly
social life Of man. He has been the preacher
| of faith in the midst of skepticism and doubt,
| of hope and trust when 1t had become FASH
ion of the cultured world to regret the fortune
| of man and criticise the appointments OF ma
ture. For the manifest evils of life, brought to
his susceptible heart by a sympathetic nature,
and to his own experience by terrible vista
tionS of sorrow, to vary the fortunes OF favor
ed and happy life, his uniform lesson has been
patience.
Let us be patientl These severe Affections
Not from the ground arise
But oftentmes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
Be still sad heart and cease repining;
Behind the clouds the sun is shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
In religion and all religions he has not only
recognized with poets relish all that was pic
turesque in the grand cathedral, the chanted
prayers by candle light, the dirges sung by the
church over dead heroes, the lonely recluse
in his cell meditating on death and God, the
martyr to his faith sending his soul to heaven,
upon the spires of flame that is consuming his
flesh, but he has recognized as well the funda-
mental truth and power, that has been exer-
cised in all religions to raise the souls of men
from the fears, the infrmities and the sins,
that beset the mortal life to peace, self-re-
nunciation and submission to the Supreme or
der of the universe, while the catholicity of
his faith he has himself well expressed in this
his 'sLaw of Life"
Live T. so live I,
To my Lord heartily
To my Prince faithfully,
To my neighbor honestly;
DIE so die l.
Grateful for the service his long and indus
trious life has enabled him to do for his country
and his age, we crown with our praise his noble
work, and rejoice in the serenity and peace
which well-ordered mind can gather in age
from the recollection of well-spent life
Letters and poems were next in order.
The following interesting letter was read
from Prof. Longfellow:
Letter from the Poet LongIeAoW.
CAMBRIDGE, Feb. II, 1882
Dear Mr.. Bradbury Il am extremely obliged
to you for your cordial invitation to attend the
meeting of the Maine Historical Society on
the 9th of this month, and greatly regret
that am prevented by illness from accepting
it. Be assured that / highly appreciate the
honor the society has done me in calling this
meeting on the anniversary of my birthday,
and that 1 shall always hold it in grateful
remembrance Reciprocating your good wishes
am
Yours faithfully,
HENRY W. LoNGFELLow.
President Bradbury wrote as follows:
Letter from Hon. j. w. Bradbury.
WASHINGTON, Feb 25th, 1882.
DEAR SIR-I sincerely regret that cannot
he with vnn at the meeting of the society in