Hyperion, a Romance, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 1853 - History - 384 pages
 

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Page 144 - Whoe'er she be, That not impossible she That shall command my heart and me; Where'er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny...
Page 322 - He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know, At first sight, if the bird be flown ; But what fair well or grove he sings in now, That is to him unknown.
Page 82 - Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well ; and doing well whatever you do, — without a thought of fame.
Page 250 - Of beauteous souls ! The Future's pledge and band ! Who in Life's battle firm doth stand, Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms Into the Silent Land ! O Land ! O Land ! For all the broken-hearted The mildest herald by our fate allotted, Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us with a gentle hand Into the land of the great Departed, Into the Silent Land ! L'ENVOI.
Page 309 - Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Page 140 - For what is Time ? The shadow on the dial, — the striking of the clock, — the running of the sand, — day and night, — summer and winter, — months, years, centuries ! These are but arbitrary and outward signs, — the measure of Time, not Time itself! Time is the Life of the Soul.
Page 322 - Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest After the sun's remove. I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days; 10 My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmerings and decays.
Page 3 - The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection, — itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars arise, and the night is holy.
Page 323 - And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes. And into glory peep. If a star were confined into a tomb, Her captive flames must needs burn there; But when the hand that locked her up gives room, She'll shine through all the sphere.
Page 323 - Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective still as they pass ; Or else remove me hence unto that hill, Where I shall need no glass.

About the author (1853)

During his lifetime, Longfellow enjoyed a popularity that few poets have ever known. This has made a purely literary assessment of his achievement difficult, since his verse has had an effect on so many levels of American culture and society. Certainly, some of his most popular poems are, when considered merely as artistic compositions, found wanting in serious ways: the confused imagery and sentimentality of "A Psalm of Life" (1839), the excessive didacticism of "Excelsior" (1841), the sentimentality of "The Village Blacksmith" (1839). Yet, when judged in terms of popular culture, these works are probably no worse and, in some respects, much better than their counterparts in our time. Longfellow was very successful in responding to the need felt by Americans of his time for a literature of their own, a retelling in verse of the stories and legends of these United States, especially New England. His three most popular narrative poems are thoroughly rooted in American soil. "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie" (1847), an American idyll; "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855), the first genuinely native epic in American poetry; and "The Courtship of Miles Standish" (1858), a Puritan romance of Longfellow's own ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. "Paul Revere's Ride," the best known of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn"(1863), is also intensely national. Then, there is a handful of intensely personal, melancholy poems that deal in very successful ways with those themes not commonly thought of as Longfellow's: sorrow, death, frustration, the pathetic drift of humanity's existence. Chief among these are "My Lost Youth" (1855), "Mezzo Cammin" (1842), "The Ropewalk" (1854), "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" (1852), and, most remarkable in its artistic success, "The Cross of Snow," a heartfelt sonnet so personal in its expression of the poet's grief for his dead wife that it remained unpublished until after Longfellow's death. A professor of modern literature at Harvard College, Longfellow did much to educate the general reading public in the literatures of Europe by means of his many anthologies and translations, the most important of which was his masterful rendition in English of Dante's Divine Comedy (1865-67).

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