Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) was an American poet and one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets.

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• The warriors that fought for their country, and bled, Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed; No stone tells the place where their ashes repose, Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes. They died in their glory, surrounded by fame, And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim; They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast, And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.
  • "The Battle of Lovell's Pond," poem first published in the Portland Gazette (November 17, 1820)

• Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.
  • Outre-Mer

• I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls!
  • Hymn to the Night, st. 1 (1839)

• Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
  • Voices of the Night, Prelude, st. 19 (1839)

• There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between.
  • The Reaper and the Flowers, st. 1 (1839)

• Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.
  • Hyperion, Bk. IV, Ch. 8 (1839)

• Thus, seamed with many scars Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior's soul, Skoal! to the Northland! skoal! —Thus the tale ended.
  • The Skeleton in Armor, st. 20 (1841)

• No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own.
  • Endymion, st. 8 (1842)

• Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.
  • The Rainy Day (1842)

• I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
  • God's-Acre, st. 1 (1842)

• Standing, with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet!
  • Maidenhood, st. 3 (1842)

• The shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior!
  • Excelsior, st. 1 (1842)

• Stars of the summer night! Far in yon azure deeps, Hide, hide your golden light! She sleeps! My lady sleeps!
  • The Spanish Student, Act I, sc. iii (serenade) (1843)

• I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o'er the city, Behind the dark church-tower.
  • The Bridge, st. 1 (1845)

• Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, And death, and time shall disappear,— Forever there, but never here! The horologe of Eternity Sayeth this incessantly,— "Forever--never! Never--forever!"
  • The Old Clock on the Stairs, st. 9 (1845)

• I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where.
  • The Arrow and the Song, st. 1 (1845)

• And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
  • The Arrow and the Song, st. 3

• O holy trust! O endless sense of rest! Like the beloved John To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast, And thus to journey on!
  • "Hymn, For my Brother's Ordination", The Seaside and the Fireside (1850).

• Ah, how wonderful is the advent of spring! — the great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron's rod, repeated on myriads and myriads of branches! — the gentle progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees, — gentle and yet irrepressible, — which no force can stay, no violence restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood by any human power, because itself is divine power. If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.
  • "Kavanagh : A Tale" (1849) Ch. 13

• I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it. I stand in awe of my own opinion. The secret demerits of which we alone, perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in some degree atoned for.
  • Kavanagh : A Tale (1849) Ch. 30

• Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
  • Kavanagh : A Tale (1849) Ch. 30

• There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair!
  • Resignation, st. 1 (1849)

• There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death.
  • Resignation, st. 5

• Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest.
  • The Builders, st. 2 (1849)

• God sent his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.
  • The Singers, st. 1 (1849)

• But the great Master said, "I see No best in kind, but in degree; I gave a various gift to each, To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.
  • The Singers, st. 6

• If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me, Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble to woo me? If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!
  • The Courtship of Miles Standish, Pt. III, The Lover's Errand

• But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language, Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival, Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes over-running with laughter, Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?
  • The Courtship of Miles Standish, Pt. III, The Lover's Errand

• If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
  • Driftwood (1857)

• Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
  • The Ladder of St. Augustine, st. 1 (1858)

• The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.
  • The Ladder of St. Augustine, st. 10

• The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath, While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
  • The Jewish Cemetery at Newport, st. 2 (1858)

• A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
  • My Lost Youth, refrain (1858)

• A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood.
  • Santa Filomena, st. 10 (1858)

• Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said; For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead.
  • Children, st. 9 (1858)

• Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupation, That is known as the Children's Hour.
  • The Children's Hour, St. 1 (1860)

• I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet, The sound of a door that is opened, And voices soft and sweet.
  • The Children's Hour, St. 2

• Time has laid his hand Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
  • The Golden Legend, Pt. IV, The Cloisters (1872)

• The grave itself is but a covered bridge, Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!
  • The Golden Legend, Pt. V, A Covered Bridge at Lucerne

• I think I have proved, by profound researches, The error of all those doctrines so vicious Of the old Areopagite Dyonisius, That are making such terrible work in the churches, By Michael the Stammerer sent from the East, And done into Latin by that Scottish beast, Erigena Johannes, who dares to maintain, In the face of the truth, the error infernal, That the universe is and must be eternal; At first laying down, as a fact fundamental, That nothing with God can be accidental; Then asserting that God before the creation Could not have existed, because it is plain That, had he existed, he would have created; Which is begging the question that should be debated, And moveth me less to anger than laughter. All nature, he holds, is a respiration Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing hereafter Will inhale it into his bosom again, So that nothing but God alone will remain.
  • The Golden Legend, Pt. VI, A travelling Scholastic affixing his Theses to the gate of the College.

• Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day.
  • Kéramos, st. 3 (1878)

• Art is the child of Nature; yes, Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude, All her majestic loveliness Chastened and softened and subdued Into a more attractive grace, And with a human sense imbued. He is the greatest artist, then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows Nature.
  • Kéramo, st. 29

• Three Silences there are: the first of speech, The second of desire, the third of thought; This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.
  • The Three Silences of Molinos (1878)

• The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart, When the full river of feeling overflows.
  • Holidays (1878)

• In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face — the face of one long dead — Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
  • The Cross of Snow (1879)

• Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending; Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.
  • Elegiac Verse, st. 14 (1879)

• There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid.
  • There Was a Little Girl
  • Often misquoted as "When she was good/She was very, very good."

• O Bells of San Blas in vain Ye call back the Past again; The Past is deaf to your prayer! Out of the shadows of night The world rolls into light; It is daybreak everywhere.
  • The Bells of San Blas, st. 11 (March 15, 1882)

• Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
  • Longfellow's translation of Friedrich von Logau, "Retribution", Sinngedichte III, 2, 24.[1]

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