Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1891-05-09

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was
born in Portland, Maine, in 1897, enter
ed Bowdoin college at the age OF four
teen, graduated in 1926 in the same class
as Hawthorne, was Immediately appoint
ed to the chair of modern language IN
the same college and, to fit himself more
fully for his professorship, spent the
next four years in Germany, France,
Spain and Italy; returned and entered
upon the duties of that Office. at the end
of six years he was appointed to pro-
fessorship of the same kind in Harvard
University, and again went abroad with
the design of becoming better acquainted
with the languages of northern Europe.
In 1887 after an absence of more than a
year, and while yetshort of thirty years
of age, he commenced his work at
Cambridge, where he continued in the
discharge of his official duties until 1854,
when he resigned; received the degree of
ID. C. L. from the university of Oxford in
1869.
He died in March, 1882 mourned in
two hemispheres by the greatest and the
least, whose common experience and SEN
timents he had sung. He was man of
steady growth; his "Earlier Poems" were
written for the most part during his col
lege life, and all of them before the age
of nineteen.
His first important work-Hyperion, a
romance in poetic prose, vivid and beau
tiful, from the vividness and beauty of
the authors own mind. Thus @
s'Look not mourufully into the past;
1t comes not back again.
Wisely improve the present; it is thine
Go forth to meet the shadowy future,
Without fear and with manly heart"
Longfellow's earliest strains preluded
the music of his prime, and his essential
qualities, familiar emotions, clear thought,
simple melody, re-appear in all his verse;
in his translations, as in his originals;
his style various but simple; choice, mu
steal, sincere, vitalized with sympathy;
clear as crystal, pure as snow; admirable
in prose, beautiful in poetry. in extent
OF popularity. the central figure in Amer
lean poetry. In respect of grace, elegance,
melody, pathos, naturalness, he stands
unsurpassed, if not unequalled, among
the poets of the age.
In scholarship, IN polite culture, he
must be classed among the learned;
yet he has not the strong pinion to dive
into the abyss of thought or soar into
the highest heayen of speculation.
He does not approach the concentra-
ton and intensity of the old masters. nor
their dramatic movement and variety, but
of daily life, familiar experience domestic
affection.
Asa boy, modest, refined, studious, of
gentle manners, and personal charm; as
instructor, mild, sympathetic, generous,
helpful; as man, meditative, the soul of
charity and kindness.
Destitute of vanity, and without envoy,
as without guile; though acquainted with
grief, he was submissive before the yelled
problems. Twice married, his first wife
persisted in a burning building. 1t was of
her he wrote in his Footsteps of Angels.
"And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven"
Loving humanity is the secret Of his
magnetism, hence his position as the
"Poet Laureate" of women. children, and
gentle folk,-his the desire and the pow
6r-
ITO quiet the restless pulse of care
Aud come like benediction
That follows after prayer"
He was a poet whom all the muses.
loved, not one alone.
In this country, by general consent, he
is the central figure in our poetical liter
allure, and is hardly less extensively
read in England, where his death was
pronounced a national loss.
The English authorities of Westmin-
ster Abbey have paid to America grace
full tribute, by placing bust of Lopgfel-
low inwhat is called the "Poet's Corner,
close to the tomb of Chaucer "The Fa-
Their of English poetry" The bust was
unveiled on the first of March, 1884 10
the presence of brilliant assemblage,
Longfellow's daughters being there.
HIS POEMS.
Perhaps Longfellow's fame rests most
securely on Hiawatha, the dirge of de-
parting race. This poem, it may be said,
sings the parable of human life-its
birth, love. death, civilization and decay.
But Longfellow throws himself no
more completely into the spirit of abo-
Eiginal western life than into that of all
his poems. He could Wooing go of the
modest Priscilla with John Alden for the
bashful Captain Miles Standish. In the
Building of the Ship" in Resignation
in Excelsior" in the "Psalm of Life"