 "Listen
my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul
Revere... Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch...One if by land, two
if by sea..."
These lines are from the poem, Paul Revere's Ride, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born FEBRUARY 27, 1807.
His grandfather had been a Revolutionary War general and his uncle,
after whom he was named, was Navy hero Henry Wadsworth, who was killed
fighting Muslim Barbary Pirates at the Battle of Tripoli, 1804.
An American poet and Harvard Professor, Longfellow wrote such classics
as: The Song of Hiawatha; The Courtship of Miles Standish, which sold
10,000 copies in London in a single day; and Evangeline, in which he
penned:
"Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice triumphs."
Longfellow's house at 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, had
been used by General George Washington as his Headquarters during the
British's Siege of Boston, July 1775-April 1776.
 |
| Longfellow and Senator Charles Sumner |
Longfellow's poems imparted cultural and moral values, focusing on life being more than material pursuits.
In 1842, Longfellow expressed his public support for abolishing slavery
by publishing a collection, Poems on Slavery, which was reprinted by
The New England Anti-Slavery Association.
The most popular
poet of his day, Longfellow was praised by contemporaries John
Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., James Russell Lowell
and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In 1884, he became the first
non-British writer to be represented by a sculpted bust in London's
Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.
In A Psalm of Life, 1838, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:
"Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul...
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time;
-Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again." |
Get the book:
No comments:
Post a Comment