The Portland daily press., 1882-02-28

rOr US tne great majority, oDStructod IN rae
| ulty and feeby responsive to the impressions
| OF nature, Longfellow has done this needed Of
| fee He sees what we dream, traverses the
range of our experience, and by his larger
| power to receive and impart has become rspre-
| sentative of all our finer sentiments. But, in
| saying this, we must discriminate between
| greater and less. There are ranges of sublime
| vision from which he has sedulousy kept him
self aloof depths of philosophic speculation
into which his thoroughly devout spirit has
never entered, holy ground of inspiration,
| into which even with unshodden feet
| he has not presumed to walk. Let
| him ever describe his own genius, since he viii
| do it not only tunefully, but with too-modest
| se,f-depreciaton In the Spanish Student a
| drama full of the most picturesque situations
| gushing with the enthusiasm of youthful feel
| ing and adorned with some OF the sweetest
| songs in the English language, he thus depicts
the poetic work he has done
All the means of action
The shapeless masses, the materials
| Lie everywhere about us. What we need
| Is the celestial fire to change the flint
| Into transparent crystal bright and clear.
| That fire is genius. The rude peasant sits
| In his smoky cot, and draws
| With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall;
| The son of genius comes, footsore with travel,
| And begs shelter for the night.
| He takes the charcoal from the peasants hand,
| And. by the magic of his touch, at once
| Transfgured, all its hidden virtues shine,
And, in the eyes of the astonished clown,
| It CLEANS a diamond Even thus transformed
Rude popular traditions and old tales
Shine as immortal poems at the touch
OF rome poor hou eless, homeless, dering bard
Who had but nights lodging for his pains.
It was not only confession of his tastes but
a toomodestcassignment of his own rank. when
after achievements that had made him ia
NOUS throughout the world he thus sang:
Come read to me some poem.
Some simple. heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish tho thoughts of day.
NoI ~ lrenn e, sne ~ sianu haus Diu Isa ihasteIs
whose d;stont footst.ns ecbo
T'hroneh the corridors Of fine
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
A.e,s g enoess "a n;sst tsll la1l ana EN- enoeayor'
W " ~ : -'As ~ Aes
Read from some humber poet
Whose songs gushed from his heart
As showers from the clouds of Summer
Or tears from the eyelids start.
In a sense thai is not SO true of any other
post who has written in the English Language.
Mr. Longfellow is the poet of the people. No
creative artist ever had larger and more inn
mediate reward for his Completed work. He
sang for the men and women, YES, and for the
children of his country and his time sang
with cultivated and exquisite appreciation Of
their tastes their feelings their ideals sang
not of the eccentric experiences, the insatia-
BILE ambitions the tragic heart-breakings of
heroic souls aloof from their kind, but of the
daily cares, the simple satisfactions. and the
common fates OF men as men, of the hardships
of toll, of the misery of defeated endeavor, of
the somhre WEAKNESS of backward-lookiug age.
ana of the pathos of death. Depicting expert
ences SO universal appealing to sentiments so
characteristic of humanity, the response of the
people he has addressed has been immediate,
universe II and hearty. He has not had to wait
for appreciation or to appeal to time to bring
another age into more congenia relations with
his feelings Every chord he has struck has
given quick and harmonious echoes. Now
Tor many years no poem OF MS, however Dr1ef,
has been published which universal journalism
did not take note OF as conspicuous event OF
cafrens ~, history. nav no sgn' 70 .no nanus VI
a rd h ~ ~ rss;das y ;o
nolu mo'u " ciooeu ~S.0H, Gnu ioI I,s ." "ooS
melodles are ringing among tne naiioWed
voices OF as many homes. There IS lyric
sweetness, o tender, inteligible sentiment so
accordant with the common experience of all
lives, in all that he has written, that no elocu-
zionist has been required TO render its simple
melody, no philoSophlc critic to mediate be-
tween It's subtle meaning and the popular IN
telligence.
More than any other of our poets we have
waited for him to celebrate and fifty interpret
the great events IN our national history.
Looking through the duH annals OF people
IN pfimltive comDaG Wltn the nara conditlons
OF nature, with an ABSORBED ana patient thrift
building, in the wilderness OF new world,
homes into which in later generation might
come the culture and refinement which con-
tinuous prosperity brings, he has found what
ever there is IN thelr history or their legends,
that is heroic or tragic or capable OF an ethical
lesson, and touched them in the telling with
the glory of his own genius. How noble and
pathetic was the tribute he paid to his three:
friends, FELTON,, Agassiz and Samner! How
sweet to great poets heart must be such deli
cate and discriminating praises as he has
bestowed upon Tennyson and Whittier the
great brothers OF his art. OF the fomer he sings
Not of +bo boy1;no d.rv;sbes of sono
who craze the brain with their deiirious d. dauce
Art thou, o sweet historian of the heart.
Aoa tto 1oft,, ,;a+o of tba lattar oor,monds
tbis tr;bnta.
'As e....
~ Noe whose aady & ne ~ so ahoiciRaoss
Tbe sn;ritnsI snnI world nrenonderates
Hermit of Amesbury! thou, too, hast heard
Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
And speakest only when thy soul is stirred
The Romans had one word to signify the poet
and the nronhet, and all the older prophecy of
the world is poetry. The converse also is true,
for since poetrv is the daily newspaper and
conrt ionrnai Of the ideal world. it is the pre-
diction of all that is vet to become fact and
history. We did not heed the yaticination this
prophet uttered. perhaps too late to avoid the
CATASTROPHE;
sTbare is q moor hl;ns Samson IN this land
Shorn Of lis strength and bound in bonds of steel
Who NAV, in some grim revel, raise his hand,
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal.
How cheering was his note in the agony of
our struggle for national life:
aHo brave landi with hearts like tbese
Thy flag that is rent in twain,
Shall be one again,
And without seam?'
Emerson saws again: "The writer like the
priest must be exempted from secular labor, his
work needs a frolic health; he must be at the
tor of his condition. We have had eminent
and successful poets, who have been also hsto-
rians, Journalists teachers, preachers, critics,
metaphysicans, reformers, diplomats and bank
ers, giving to the Jealous muse divided allie
oiance It has been the good fortune of Long
fellow that he has been kept with no distracting
employments, in studies that fed the fire of his
poetic passion with new material, and at the
top of a sound and healthy condition of produc-
tive labor. The only department of science. in
which he has been successful teacher is
the science of language and of the deft use of
AZ. \