American poet (1807-1882)
The spring came suddenly, bursting upon the world as a child bursts into a room, with a laugh and a shout and hands full of flowers.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
A young critic is like a boy with a gun; he fires at every living thing he sees. He thinks only of his own skill, not of the pain he is giving.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
You know what a fond and silly heart he has towards the fair sex -- any pill goes down with him that is administered by the hand or gilded with the name of woman.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
letter to Patrick Greenleaf, October 23, 1826
Round about what is, lies a whole mysterious world of might be, -- a psychological romance of possibilities and things that do not happen. By going out a few minutes sooner or later, by stopping to speak with a friend at a corner, by meeting this man or that, or by turning down this street instead of the other, we may let slip some great occasion of good, or avoid some impending evil, by which the whole current of our lives would have been changed. There is no possible solution to the dark enigma but the one word, "Providence."
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"
For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,
In sombre harness mailed,
Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall has scaled.
He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room,
And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,
The silence and the gloom.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Warden of the Cinque Ports"
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"
Perhaps the chief cause which has retarded the progress of poetry in America, is the want of that exclusive cultivation, which so noble a branch of literature would seem to require. Few here think of relying upon the exertion of poetic talent for a livelihood, and of making literature the profession of life. The bar or the pulpit claims the greater part of the scholar's existence, and poetry is made its pastime.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Literary Spirit of Our Country", Poems and Other Writings
Some sorrows are but footprints in the snow, which the genial sun effaces, or, if it does not wholly efface, changes into dimples.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Something attempted, something done
Has earned a night's repose.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Village Blacksmith"
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"
Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Poet's Tale", Tales of a Wayside Inn
In this world, a man must be either anvil or hammer.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Story of Brother Bernardus", Hyperion
Simplicity is the character of the spring of life.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
attributed, Day's Collacon
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained in sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upwards in the night.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Ladder of St. Augustine"
O little souls! as pure as white
And crystalline as rays of light
Direct from heaven, their source divine;
Refracted through the mist of years,
How red my setting sun appears,
How lurid looks this soul of mine!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Weariness"
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Midnight Mass for the Dying Year"
Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
As Unto the bow the the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows:
Useless each without the other!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Song of Hiawatha
Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep
Into a world unknown -- the cornerstone of a nation!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Courtship of Miles Standish"