American poet (1807-1882)
The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness, -- the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Morituri Salutamus", Poems and Other Writings
Burn, O evening hearth, and waken
Pleasant visions, as of old!
Though the house by winds be shaken,
Safe I keep this room of gold!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Bridge of Cloud"
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Midnight Mass for the Dying Year
I know not how it is, but during a voyage I collect books as a ship does barnacles.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
letter to Charles Sumner, September 17, 1842
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Herons of Elmwood", Keramos and Other Poems
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Who dares to say that he alone has found the truth?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The New England Tragedies
Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep
Into a world unknown -- the cornerstone of a nation!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Courtship of Miles Standish"
Fame grows like a tree if it have the principle of growth in it; the accumulated dews of ages freshen its leaves.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
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.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Singers
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.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kéramos
O holy Night! from these I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Hymn to the Night"
If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
A stiff letter galls one like a stiff shirt collar -- whilst a sheet garnished here and there with a careless blot -- and here and there a dash -- but in the main full of excellent matter, is like a clever fellow in a dirty shirt whom we value for the good humour he brings with him and not for the garb he wears.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
letter to Patrick Greenleaf, October 23, 1826
Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Something Left Undone"
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.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Keramos
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Morituri Salutamus"
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.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"