The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-10-01

His silver words alone
Shall keep his memory green!
Yet, fifty, in his boyhood home,
The old town by the sea,
Beneath these arching elms
Where he so loved to be,
His sculptured form we place!
And in the days and years to come
When men are asked to name
Whom Portland honors first,
Deserving poets fame,
All shall point hitherward
The school children next sang Longfellow's
psalm of Life" with much intelligence and
good phrasing. after which Hon. G. f. Libby
delivered the following grafton:
MIR. LIBBY's GRAFTON.
Ladies and Gentlemen: The occasion that
brings us together today is one of more than
passing interest and marks an important
event in the life of our city. As citizens we
have assembled to honor the memory of the
most illustrious of her sons, to pay our
tribute to life of singular purity and merit.
to. give expression in permanent form to our
admiration for the qualities of mind and
heart which have made Longfellow the best
known and loved of American poets.
We have called to our aid the sculptor's art
to perpetuate in enduring bronze the physi-
cal aspects of the man, the dignity and charm
of his person. But this is not the full mean
ing of our act; it is the life of the poet rather
than his fame or achievements, great as they
were, which we would emphasize today We
would have this statue stand as a monument
to individual worth, tribute to noble living
Fortunately 1t Is not necessary to separate
the poet from the man in this tribute of our
admiration. For his poems are but the ex-
preston of his life and Longfellow is greater
than any of his poems. What manner of
man he was, what thoughts he spoke, what
ideals he cherished, what life he lived, are
matters which possess a peculiar interest to
us, who claim him as ito the manner born"
AS we stand upon this spot today, almost
the centre of our city population and growth
it is difficult to recall the Portland of eighty
years ago.-the Portland of Longfellow's
childhood and youth,-then a town of be-
tween six and seven thousand inhabitants.
with its centre of population eastof Exchange
street, with its northerly slope towards Back
Cove thlnly sprinkled with houses, with but
a single house upon State street.-The resi-
dence of future chief justice OF the State
with bramhall and Munjoy hills thickly
grown with bushes and hardly reclaimed
from natures hands, and yet as a town it
already gave evidence of the thrift and en-
terprise of its inhabitants which, notwith-
standing its repeated calamities and misfor-
tunes, have enabled it to arise thrice from its
from apparently overwhelming disaster.
But however much the Portland of the past
may differ from that of the present. SO far as
the hand of man is concerned, the natural
beauties of its situation, which have made it
and Will ever make it, one of natures lowell
est pictures, were the same at the time of
Longfellow's birth as today. Fore River,
Back Cove, behring's Woods, Casco Bay
dotted with islands, the Hesperides of his
youthful dreams,l the open sea, the itch
stretch OF landscape with its back ground
OF the White Hills, are all the same.
npTmananf IF
beautiful town by the sea- to which
Longfellow ever returned with hlial love and
admiration, seeking the memories of his lost
youth amid the scenes that had first
s awakened his boyish warnings and aspira-
to do with the unfolding of his sensitive and
responsive nature. They furnished the back
ground to the picture, the stimulant to his
youthful fancy and imagination. Nature
In her large and varied way supplied what
was lacking In the narrow life of the town
and ministered to the needs of an ardent and
thoughtful temperament, which turned from
the ordinary pursuits of men and sought
companionship in books and in the creation
OF his own imagination.
1t is hard to realize the difference between
the intellectual life of today and that of the
early part OF this century in New England.
The prodlgious stride we have made in the
world of letters, the widening of our INTEL
lectuai horizon by greater facilities of travel
social and material conditions of life which
have emancipated us from the narrowness
and Isolation OF new civilization and
brought us into close and sympathetic COM
panionship with the spirit of the old world.
HAY wr1ugds revolution 50 great In ali
growth OF a nation that 1t seems
hardly possible that a century conld
have produced results SO widespread
ing and beneficent In the early part Of this
century american literature was thing
from the tramnels which local custom and
conditions had placed upon it. America had
no literary school worthy of the name. It's
energies had been too much absorbed in the
solution OF practical problems of government
to have much time for the cultivation of the
fine arts. The national spirit had not vet
found its best literary form and expression
Our intense struggle for national existence
our constant contest with material
surroundings, to gain broader foothold for
our civilization, had produced an activity
and unrest which had little harmony with
clustered shades or life of scholarly medi-
tation. The very intensity of our national
feeling precluded that sympathy with the
life and institutions of the past which is
essential to the creation of the highest litera-
ture. The breadth and sweep of our genius
was shown in political rather than literary
FORM. Foreign nations had little to furnish
us In the way Of guides to our national deyel-
opment. The old civilization was too much
welded to the past, was associated too in
timately with theories and institutions which
vexed our spirit and aroused our antagouism
to make Us alive to its merits or tolerant of
its defects
Conditions like these do not favor the pur-
suit OF a literary career; and it is proof of
the Strong and pervading qualities of his
mind, that Longfellow was able to with
stand the current of his time and to follow
unchecked the career which his genius mark
ed out for him. The prosaic life of a New
England town was not able to check the GEN
ulne instincts OF the poet. His refined and
sensitive. nature found all that was neces-
sary tor Its growth in its surroundings. and
with That power of selection which marks
all nighly organized minds, was able Ia find
among the common things of life the elements
Oh beauty ana truth and to invest them with
new spiritual significance. The outward
world was to him but the manifestation of
tne spirit; and the inner life. the life
OF Thought and feeling more than ali
thihgs else. His temperament was
happy blending of the serionss
ness ana earnestness of the New Eng
land character with the cheerfulneSs and
buoyancy of more sunny climes. he anu anu
not born out OF joint with the world. bnt ain
harmony with the whole creation. He bad
neither the aggressiyeness of the reformer
nor the narrowness and intolerance of tba
bigot. OF deeply religious nature hi liz
religion was of the heart rather than ~ tho
head 1t was based upon the beatitpdas
rather than the terrors of Sinai At a time
when New England was intensely Calvin.
istic, and Edward Payson, one of its fore
rad ha ind