Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) is one of America’s best-known poets, recognized for his insistent moral tone, sentimentality, and serene idealism. He is best remembered for such poems as “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and “The Village Blacksmith” (both 1841) and for narrative poems such as “Evangeline” (1847,) “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855,) and “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1861.)
Longfellow also produced a translation of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1867.) His poems, such as “There was a little girl,” remain familiar to this day as rhymes and melodies.
Longfellow’s prose romance Hyperion (1839,) his tale of a young man who seeks to forget sorrow in travel, was a result of his grief after the death of his first wife in 1835. Longfellow’s creative life was again interrupted by the 1861 death of his second wife, who was burned to death in a domestic accident.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Mercy
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All that is best in the great poets of all countries, is not what is national in them, but what is universal.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Poetry
We often excuse our own want of philanthropy by giving the name of fanaticism to the more ardent zeal of others.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Fanaticism
Magnificent autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds; not like a hermit, clad in gray; but like a warrior with the stain of blood on his brazen mail.—His crimson scarf is rent; his scarlet banner dripping with gore; his step like a flail on the threshing floor.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Seasons, Autumn
O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written upon his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Singing, Soul
The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless; love is eternal.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, who has sight so keen and strong That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroken; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Friends and Friendship
All things are symbols: the external shows of Nature have their image in the mind
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Wilderness
Nor deem the irrevocable past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Past, Reflection
Submission is the footprint of faith in the pathway of sorrow.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Some must follow and some command, though all are born of clay.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: History
Yea, music is the prophet’s art; among the gifts that God hath sent, one of the most magnificent.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Music
A life that is worth writing at all, is worth writing minutely and truthfully.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Biography
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Awareness, Defeat, Acceptance, Failure, Realization
And the night shall be filled with music, and the cares, that infest the day, shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Night
Let the dead Past bury its dead.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Regret, Moving on, Remorse, Repentance
My soul is full of longing For the secret of the Sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Water
Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Control
Silence is a great peacemaker.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Silence
But the nearer the dawn the darker the night, And by going wrong all things come right; Things have been mended that were worse, And the worse, the nearer they are to mend.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Wilderness
The greatest grace of a gift, perhaps, is that it anticipates and admits of no return.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Giving
A word that has been said may be unsaid—it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Action, Deeds
It is folly to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon without emotion; there are names I can never hear spoken without almost starting.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Passion, Love
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Love
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Judging, Integrity, Judges, Judgement, Judgment, Secrets of Success
Time itself … is the life of the soul.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Topics: Time Management
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