American poet (1807-1882)
I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kavanagh: A Tale
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
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadia
So many ghosts, and forms of fright,
Have started from their graves to-night,
They have driven sleep from mine eyes away;
I will go down to the chapel and pray.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Golden Legend
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"
A great sorrow, like a mariner's quadrant, brings the sun at noon down to the horizon, and we learn where we are on the sea of life.
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
God's voice was not in the earthquake,
Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Children of the Lord's Supper"
In old age our bodies are worn-out instruments, on which the soul tries in vain to play the melodies of youth. But because the instrument has lost its strings, or is out of tune, it does not follow that the musician has lost his skill.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Kavanagh", Prose Works
More hearts are breaking in this world of ours
Than one would say. In distant villages
And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted
The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage
Scattered them in their flight, do they take root,
And grow in silence, and in silence perish.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The Spanish Student
There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Courtship of Miles Standish"
I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
letter to Charles Sumner, September 17, 1842
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Evangeline
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Palingenesis"
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Day is Done"
Well I know the secret places,
And the nests in hedge and tree;
At what doors are friendly faces,
In what hearts are thoughts of me.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Bridge of Cloud"
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"
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"
The happy should not insist too much upon their happiness in the presence of the unhappy.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk