Elson Grammar School Literature Part 34

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us, by that G.o.d we both adore, Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore: Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting: "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian sh.o.r.e!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted--nevermore!

HELPS TO STUDY.

Notes and Questions.

What is the theme of this poem?

What gives it its musical quality?

Mention parts that you think are especially beautiful.

Find examples of alliteration.

What does the refrain add to this poem?

What is the meaning of "Night's Plutonian sh.o.r.e"?

Of what is the raven a symbol?

Why does the poet call the bust of Pallas "pallid"?

What is the significance of the last stanza?

From this poem, in what would you say Poe's poetry excels?

Which stanza do you like best?

Why?

Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"ghost"

"surcease"

"entreating"

"obeisance"

"craven"

"ominous"

"censer"

"seraphim"

"nepenthe"

"dying ember"

"fantastic terrors"

"saintly days"

"tufted floor"

"pallid bust"

"radiant maiden"

"dirges of his Hope"

"bird of yore"

"balm in Gilead"

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

In "The Courtship of Miles Standish" Longfellow has made us acquainted with his ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Mullens, pa.s.sengers of the Mayflower. Of such ancestry Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807. His birthplace was at that time a beautiful and busy town, a forest city with miles of sea beach and a port where merchant vessels from the West Indies exchanged sugar and rum for the products of the forest and the fisheries of Maine.

We are told that he was a boy "true, high-minded and n.o.ble"; "active, eager, often impatient"; "handsome in appearance" and the "sunlight of the home." His conduct at school was "very correct and amiable"--he read much and was always studious and thoughtful. The first book which fascinated his imagination was Irving's "Sketch-Book." Indeed there is a resemblance between the gentle Irving and the gentle Longfellow which is expressed in the prose of one and the poetry of the other.

Longfellow's education was obtained in Portland and at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, where he had for cla.s.smates several youths who afterward became famous, Nathaniel Hawthorne, J. S. C. Abbott, and Franklin Pierce.

Upon Longfellow's graduation, the trustees of the college, having decided to establish a chair of modern languages, proposed that this young graduate, of scholarly and literary tastes, should fit himself for this position. Three years, therefore, he spent in delightful study and travel in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. Here was laid the foundation for his scholarship, and, as in Irving on his first European trip, there was kindled that pa.s.sion for romantic lore which followed him through life and which gave color and direction to much of his work. He mastered the language of each country visited in a remarkably short time, and many of the choicer poems found in these languages he has given to us in the English.

After five years at Bowdoin, Longfellow was invited in 1834 to the chair of modern languages in Harvard College. Again he was given an opportunity to prepare himself by a year of study abroad. In 1836 he began his active work at Harvard and took up his residence in the historic Craigie House, overlooking the Charles River--a house in which Washington had been quartered for some months when he came to Cambridge in 1775 to take command of the Continental forces. Longfellow was thenceforth one of the most prominent members of that group of men including Sumner, Hawthorne, Aga.s.siz, Lowell, and Holmes, who gave distinction to the Boston and Cambridge of earlier days.

For twenty years Longfellow filled the professorship of modern languages at Harvard and was one of the best beloved instructors at the university. He resigned that he might devote himself to writing and was succeeded at Harvard by James Russell Lowell.

Though Longfellow wrote in prose and is the author of many shorter poems, his reputation is mainly based upon his longer poems. Longfellow was a great admirer of the German poet, Goethe, to whose "Hermann and Dorothea"

we are indebted for much of the form and no doubt some of the story of Evangeline. The story of Acadie was told first to Hawthorne by a friend of both authors; but the tale was hardly dark enough to suit the fancy of Hawthorne, whereas to Longfellow it seemed to have in it precisely those elements of faith and devotion that make the widest appeal. In a collection of poems published in 1850 appeared the poem of Longfellow's highest patriotic reach, the allegory of "The Building of the Ship." A friend of Lincoln recited this poem to him, and when the lines of its closing apostrophe to the ship of state were reached, with tears in his eyes the president said, "It is a great gift to be able to stir men like that." In his poem, "Hiawatha," Longfellow chose the metre of the Finnish epic "Kalevala," which is peculiarly suited to the tales of primitive people.

The worthiest and most picturesque traditions of the American Indian are woven into a connected story whose charm is greatly heightened by the novel melody of the verse.

In 1861 the happiness of Longfellow's home life was broken by the death of his wife, who was fatally burned. He turned from this sorrow and the anxieties of the Civil War to the more mechanical work of writing tales and making translations. The "Tales of a Wayside Inn" appeared in 1863, and seven years later he published his translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy."

On Longfellow's seventy-second birthday the children of Cambridge presented him with a chair made from the wood of the "Village Blacksmith's" chestnut tree. He died March 24, 1882, aged seventy-five. In 1884 a bust of him was placed in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey--England's gracious tribute to the renown of America's best loved poet.

EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

PRELUDE

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers h.o.a.r, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.