Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-04-02
ode of grace and consolation; and
so tbs true that


Poets learn by suffering
What they teach in song.
Hearthstone poet of love, of friend
ship, Of sympathy, of hope, of pa
thence, of cheer, of contentment, of
peace, of resignation,-such was
Longfellow, as for years he has sat
at your freside and mine, reader, and
taught US the deeper, better lessons
of life and heaven.
But more than our personal and
freside poet Longfellow was our
great national poet, SO far as we
have had any. He has sung our
Indian legends and traditions; our
colonial and revolutionary history,
our martial deeds on land
and water; our freedoms sto-
ry; the heroism of our private
life, besides our chimes and seasons,
our clouds and trees and hills and
birds and flowers and rivers.
While Longfellow' name as poet
may not live with the immortal few
that were not born to die, yet from
the noble elevation of his thoughts,
the singular purity of his sentiments,
the exquisite perfection of his Ian
guage, and the healthfulness of his
spirit, with the great variety and
character of his themes, gathered
from all that is most personal and
heroic, sacred and beautiful in our
national life and history, he is des-
tined to live in love and story, and
few the names, past or present, that
will survive him.
/ A man highly gifted in every de
pertinent of body, mind and spirit;
possessing the rarest scholarship of
every age and nation, speaking many
a foreign language with a natives
felicity the most finished type of an
American gentleman; in private life,
in social life, in public life, without
a stain, and endeared to all man
of most eminent virtues and useful-
ness, and sanctifed by suffering al
most into saintliness- was our
Longfellow, but this past week borne
| to his final rest.
While his death is so recent and his
works and praises are in everybody's
mouth, there is no time so fitting for
us all to read over again bis prose
and poetry, the Romance of Hype-
ron, Outre-Mer Kavanagh, his
principal prose works,--who that
has ever read these once does not
wish to read them again ?-Evange,
line, Hiawatha. The Courtship of
Miles Standish, the Spanish Student;
The Tales of Wayside Inn, his
ballads and lyrics, and scores of ten
der melodies Psalm of Life,
The Reaper and the Flowers, The
Footsteps of Angels. The Village
Blacksmith, The Old Clock on the
Stairs, The Building of the Ship,
Resignation, The Children's Hour,
The Skeleton in Armour, The Bridge,
and The Wreck of the Hesperus
These cannot be read too often by
old and young; so entertaining are
they, SO full OF instruction, of beauty
and of grace.
In one of the finest and most cul~
tivated cities Of the continent
Portland, Maine, overlooking the
blue Atlantic with its hundred isles
and white sailing ships-Longfellow
, was born, in 1907, into home of
great refinement, independence and
, social position. Graduating at
Bowdoin College at Is he was
soon elected to one of it's professor
ships, which, after several years
spent abroad in study, he filled for
five years Afterwards for seven
teen years he was professor of mods
: ern languages in Harvard College
Since 1854 he has lived in Cam
+ bridge, close under Harvard's classic
shades, and in the house Washing
ton occupied in the old revolution
airy times. No one that has ever
r seen it can ever forget that pictur-
esque, historic mansion, with its
!, venerable beauty, where Mrs,
Washington hundred years ago
ueid IeCtpLIouF, dbu WHERE our poet
has given receptions SO hospitable
and kindly for so many years, to all
of this and other lands who have
chosen to call and see him. Here,
amid literary and academic honors,
surrounded with all the refnements
5 of books and culture and society,
5 beautiful and loving children, minis
tenng to his happiness, the friend
ship and affections of millions about
him, he has lived in honored and
studious retirement, patiently filling
4 up the measure of his days with
g industry and duty, and so descend
= ing with the benediction of earth
and heaven upon him, into the vale
of years, and now at last into the
> rest and Immortality of the skies.
] And of him it is true as he sang in
+ his own words, of another:
n His soul to him who gave it rose,
, God led ii to its long repose
: It's glorious rest.
And tho the poets sun has set,
/ Its light shall linger round us yet,
Bright radiant blest