The Advocate and news., 1898-03-16
AMERICAN LITERATURE COURSE.
LESSON VII. PART /.
THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS.
HENRY WADsWORTH LONGFEL-
LOW.
1S07-1882.


A forlorn and shlpwrecked brother,
Seeing, may take heart again.
No poet has ever lived more truly In
the hearts Of the busy and energetic
American people than the beloved author
of the psalm Of Life"
He has not tried to soar above the
heads of the common people by dealing
in subjects and themes too obtuse for
their conception. He has lived and sung
pure, simple, rythmic melodies on the
old, old joys and sorrows OF the world.
He has taught us in simplest rhyme that
Life is not an empty dream,
and in another poem he urges us forward
into the energetic formation Of our own
characters with lines like these:
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on the sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.
Into the sorrowing homes he goes
with his precious words of sympathy
and love, helping them to accept the
Death angels call in way pleasing
to the Father. How sweet Is the tender,
mournful cadence of "The Reaper and
the Flowers:
o, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The reaper came that day;
Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.
Yet again he comes with "Resigna-
ton" and tells us, it is true, that which
we knew to be AN old, old story; but how
divinely expressed:
There is no flock, however watched and
tended,
But one dead lamb is there,
There is no fireside, howsoer defended,
But has one vacant chair.
We see but dimly through the mist and
Vapors,
Amid these earthly damps,
What seem to us but sad funeral tapers,
May be heavens distant lamps.
And though at times impetuous with emo
tiOn,
And anguish long suppressed,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like
the ocean,
That cannot be at rest.
We will be patient and assuage the feeling
We cannot wholly stay;
BY silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way
Only too well did this beloved poet
realize the sorrow of losing loved one,
and the horrible death of his wife cast
q shadow over his life which was never
lifted. Having experienced to their full
est depths the joys as well as the sor-
rows Of this life, it made him loving
sympathi2er-
In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes.
LOngfellow was and Is and ever will
be the poet of the heart; the master
hand that has touched the mystic key
note of the soul, awakening the harmony
in old and rusted heart strings and,
opening the food gates Of memory, a
thousand recollections pour down upon
the frozen heart, melting 1t and filing
1t again with love.
HIS LIFE.
February q, 1SO7-March "a, 1922
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was
born in Portland, Me-, in "a great
square house by the sea-" His father
was prominent lawyer and his mother,
once very beautiful girl, was for many
years an invalid.
Longfellow had every advantage in
his boyhoOd home No pains or ex-
pense were spared upon mis- education,
and he profted by these rare opportuni-
ties. At he started to school, at he
was half way through his Latin gram
mar At 13 his poem, "The Battle OF
Livell's Pond" came out in the Port
land Gazette.
During the next four years at Bow
dOin college he published twenty-f0ur
poems and three prose sketches.
He was Of q sunny, genial and amiable
disposition, and while at college formed
some lifelong friendships.
He was esteemed so highly by the
college authorities that they elected him
Professor of Modern Languages. He ac-
cepted the position but spent year In
Europe preparing himself. He occupied
this position at Bowdoin for five years
and then accepted position In Harvard
college. Another year Of preparation