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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IN MEMORIAM: LONGFELLOW DEAD, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Ay, it is well! Crush back your selfish tears Last Line: To feel once more his clasp of human love! Subject(s): Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882) | |||
AY, it is well! Crush back your selfish tears; For from the half-veiled face of earthly spring Hath he not risen on heaven-aspiring wing To reach the spring-tide of the eternal years? With life full-orbed, he stands amid his peers, The grand immortals! a fair, mild-eyed king, Flushing to hear their potent welcomes ring Round the far circle of those luminous spheres. Mock not his heavenly cheer with mortal wail, Unless some human-hearted nightingale, Pierced by grief's thorn, shall give such music birth That he, the new-winged soul, the crowned and shriven, May lean beyond the effulgent verge of heaven, To catch his own sweet requiem, borne from earth! Such marvellous requiem were a paean too -- (Woe touched and quivering with triumphant fire); For him whose course flashed always high and higher, Is lost beyond the strange, mysterious blue: Ah! yet, we murmur, can this thing be true? Forever silent here, that tender lyre, Tuned to all gracious themes, all pure desire, Whose notes dropped sweet as honey, soft as dew? No tears! you say -- since rounded, brave, complete, The poet's work lies radiant at God's feet. Nay! nay! our hearts with grief must hold their tryst: How dim grows all about us and above! Vainly we grope through death's bewildering mist, To feel once more his clasp of human love! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW; IN MEMORIAM by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON THE SHADES OF NIGHT by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW; ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27 FEB. 1867 by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL LONGFELLOW by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY THE VILLAGE MUNITIONS CO., INC.; FORMERLY THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS TAKE YOUR CHOICE: AS LONGFELLOW WROTE IT by BERTON BRALEY LONGFELLOW by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH IN MEMORIAM by MIRIAM DEL BANCO LONGFELLOW by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON A STORM IN THE DISTANCE (AMONG THE GEORGIAN HILLS) by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE |
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