CHAPTER X

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

It has been now somewhat more than a score of years since the death of Longfellow. Perhaps we are not yet far enough removed from his day to form an impartial estimate of the rank and place in our literature which this deservedly popular poet is destined to occupy. It requires a considerable lapse of time to dispel the illusion and glamour which his charming poetry cast over the minds of his readers; and it may be that we are not yet prepared to examine his verse in the cold and dispassionate light of criticism.

Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. He came of one of the first New England families, and his father, who was a successful lawyer, spared no expense to equip his son fully for a literary life. The way, therefore, was made smooth for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to attain to the eminent distinction of being America's most popular poet at the time of his death. It seems fitting to review his poetic achievement and inquire whether the foremost American poet of a generation ago is still holding his own. It is possible that his popularity has been eclipsed by the fame of some bard whose star had not risen two decades ago.

In his own time, as just stated, Longfellow enjoyed a wider fame than any other poet, alive or dead, on this side of the Atlantic. Emerson was doubtless a profounder thinker and more philosophical, and appealed more powerfully to a select circle

of readers. But he was the recognized exponent of a certain school, and his audience was therefore limited. Whittier's verse smacked too much of a party, or of a section, to be universally admired. Profoundly stirred by the evils of slavery, he came to regard himself, for the nonce, as the poetic mouthpiece of the Abolition party, and when his party passed away together with the cause which called it into being, Whittier's poetry lost much of its power and charm, even for his most zealous copartizans. Lowell was perhaps more brilliant and versatile than Longfellow; but he was rather bookish, and his poetry is not infrequently open to the charge of pedantry. Bryant was chaste and finished and grand even; but his poetry was as lifeless and as cold as marble. There was no fire or passion in it: it came from the head, not from the heart. Longfellow, however, "looked into his own heart and wrote"; and he touched in his song those chords which awaken an echo in every heart. For this reason his poetry approximates that class of literature which critics sometimes denominate "universal." Not that Longfellow deserves to rank with the world's great poets, for he does not: nor would the most ardent admirers of his genius make any such claim for him. But his poetry has more in it that appeals to the human heart than has the poetry of any of his American contemporaries.

Longfellow's fame is not confined to America. He is favorably known in Europe. No other American poet, with the possible exception of Poe, is so widely known on the other side of the Atlantic. Indeed, it is questionable that Poe forms an exception. For while Poe is much read on the Continent, especially in France, still it is his tales rather than his poetry that foreigners read. Longfellow's

poetry has been far more extensively translated. His recent biographer is authority for the statement that there have been one hundred versions, in whole or in part, of Longfellow's work, extending into eighteen foreign languages. What other American author can equal, much less surpass, this flattering record of appreciation?

Longfellow has been aptly called the people's poet; and, in the judgment of many discriminating critics, the title is well founded in fact. For his sympathies and affections were ever with the people; for them he wrought, for them he sang. By education and culture, by his happy faculty of literary expression and by his unfailing good taste he was peculiarly qualified and equipped for this office; and herein lies the secret of his unbounded popularity and success. His message was not erudite or esoteric; nor did it presuppose any extraordinary degree of mental acumen in those to whom it was addressed, to appreciate it. But it was such as a man of average intellectual endowment could comprehend and appreciate. In this respect our poet was poles removed from Browning, whose poetry fully yields its hidden meaning only to the most acute and best trained intellects. But Longfellow's simplicity of utterance makes his poetry readily "understanded of the people" and renders a commentary unnecessary. His verse is at once lucid and clear and melodious and beautiful. Indeed, his distinguishing virtue consists in his power of expressing in chaste, lucid and musical verse what everybody has felt, but few can say with such felicity of phrase. He possessed the rare faculty of re-clothing old, familiar truths in a poetic dress in such a manner as to give them the appearance of entirely new and original creations. Difficile est

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proprie communia dicere, says Horace, himself a master in the art of literary expression; but, somehow, Longfellow seems to have acquired the secret of this difficult art of putting commonplace things happily.

Longfellow was of a poetic temperament. His taste and feelings were essentially those of a poet. This is evident from the glamour and witchery of phrase, which we have just observed as characteristic of his style. He first felt the poem in his own soul, and then he translated it into terms of surpassing grace, beauty and music. Herein lies the secret of his genius.

Some critics are willing to concede Longfellow facility, beauty and charm; but they deny him originality. There is a sense in which this criticism is true; but, like all half truths, the dictum is misleading and does the poet an injustice. Longfellow, it is true, was not original in the sense in which Poe was original; nor was he original in the sense in which Browning was original. It is not probable that Longfellow possessed as high a degree of originality perhaps as either of these poets. Yet, if by originality is meant creative genius, then Longfellow was unquestionably original. For does it not require a high order of creative genius to give to the prosy, commonplace sentiments and experiences of everyday life poetic form and beauty and spontaneity as well? Now, this, as has been observed, is just what Longfellow has done. Let us have done therefore with the cant that he was not an original poet.

Longfellow achieved his greatest triumphs in lyrical poetry. As a dramatic poet he was not a success. But this is no great disparagement. It only proves that, like most authors, our poet had his limitations. For few, indeed, are the poets of

the last century who have won laurels in the province of the drama. Not even Tennyson with all the glamour of his name could make one of his dramas hold the stage. Longfellow produced two successful narrative poems. But it is not chiefly these that have won him his enviable reputation as the poet of the people. It is rather his sonnets, his shorter poems, in which he excelled. Of these perhaps the best known is his "Psalm of Life," now as familiar as a household word. This contains a larger number of lines, long since become familiar quotations, than any other of our poet's lyrics. In point of furnishing quotable lines, as well as in point of spontaneity and general excellence, it challenges comparison with Gray's beautiful Elegy. Longfellow gave conclusive proof of his good taste and sound literary judgment in resisting the temptation to make of his theme a mere didactic poem. He speaks to us through the lines of this psalm as standing, not on a plane above and beyond us, but on the same level with us and as being himself one of our own number. The poem is a stirring and inspiriting appeal for sympathy, of a man who aspires with us, to a higher and nobler life. There is nothing of didacticism about it. On the contrary, it is imaginative and spontaneous and pulsates with emotion and sympathy.

Worthy of special mention among our poet's lyrics are "Excelsior," "The Reaper and the Flowers," "Footsteps of Angels," "Maidenhood" and "Resignation." These are all excellent and have attained a wide currency. They are poems instinct with tender sentiment and make a strong, albeit mute, appeal to gentle and pensive natures. Equally beautiful in technical execution, though not so pathetic perhaps, are such snatches of song