LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 RECEIVED BY EXCHANGE 
 Class _J 5 i >t 
 
Address and Poem 
 
 READ AT 
 
 Bowdoin College 
 
 JUNE 26, 1907 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 
 CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
 
 OF THE CLASS OF 1825 
 

 
 
Address and Poem 
 
 READ AT 
 
 Bowdoin College 
 
 JUNE 26, 1907 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 
 CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
 
 OF THE CLASS OF 1825 
 
 OFTHE 
 
 UNIVERSITY] 
 
 BRUNSWICK, MAINE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE COLLEGE 
 
 1907 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 PROFESSOR HENRY LELAND CHAPMAN, D.D., 
 CLASS OF 1866 
 
 209392 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 TO speak of Longfellow in this place, and to this 
 audience, is a privilege, a privilege none the 
 less though speech may not rise to the height of the 
 subject and the occasion. The place is hallowed by 
 the memory of his own presence and voice, when he 
 was already crowned with the beauty of age, and 
 with the honor of the world. The audience is com 
 posed, in part at least, of those whose feeling of 
 reverence for the poet is made tender, and in some 
 measure personal, by the strong and subtle tie which 
 binds together the sons of a common Alma Mater. 
 It is a brother-alumnus whose character and work 
 we commemorate, now when a hundred years have 
 passed since his life began, and twenty-five years 
 since it ended. 
 
 It is true, of course, that, like all poets, he belongs 
 to everyone that has found pleasure, or comfort, or 
 inspiration in his verse ; and his fame is one of the 
 cherished treasures of the land. Yet it seems to be 
 our privilege, as it certainly is our pride, to feel that, 
 in some sense, he belongs peculiarly to us. He was 
 a student, a graduate, and a professor of Bowdoin, 
 and through all the years that followed his residence 
 here, he cherished and expressed for the college a 
 deep and filial regard. He was still an undergrad 
 uate when the "phantom of fame" rose upon his 
 
6 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 vision, and he wrote to his father, "I most eagerly 
 aspire after eminence in literature. My whole soul 
 burns most ardently for it ; and every earthly thought 
 centres in it." 
 
 As he has, himself, recorded, it was in No. 27, 
 Winthrop Hall, the eastern windows of which looked 
 out upon the grove of fragrant and murmuring pines, 
 that he wrote the poems which, appearing in the 
 United States Literary Gazette, attracted not a 
 little attention, and in many minds associated the 
 initials, "H. W. L.," with the most hopeful verse 
 produced at that time, in New England. 
 
 It was here that he returned, after three rapturous 
 and fruitful years in the Old World, to begin his work 
 as a teacher amid the scenes which had witnessed 
 his diligence as a student. On the fiftieth anniver 
 sary of his graduation, he did in this place what he 
 could scarcely be persuaded to do elsewhere, he 
 read a poem to a public audience ; in which, in his 
 inimitably modest way, he laid a tribute, wrought 
 equally of art and of affection, at the proud feet of 
 his Alma Mater. 
 
 That was a memorable scene, as some who are 
 present to-day will recall. The floor and galleries, 
 the pews, the aisles, and every " coigne of vantage" 
 in this historic church, were crowded with people 
 who held their breaths to catch the spoken music of 
 his salutation : 
 
 " O ye familiar scenes, ye groves of pine, 
 That once were mine, and are no longer mine, 
 Thou river widening thro the meadows green 
 
ADDRESS 7 
 
 To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen, 
 Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose 
 Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose 
 And vanished, we who are about to die 
 Salute you ! " 
 
 Do you suppose the college will ever forget that 
 salutation, or cease to claim the poet as her own? 
 Not her own in any jealous or exclusive sense, but 
 in the proud and grateful sense in which a mother 
 claims as her own the son whose achievements in the 
 world of men reflect glory upon the household from 
 which he went, and to which his feet sometimes, and 
 his affections always, return. 
 
 It was a characteristic and beautiful trait of Long 
 fellow that he cherished an abiding interest in the 
 ancestral line which led him back to the cabin of the 
 Mayflower, in the city of his birth and happy boy 
 hood, and in the college where he passed the years 
 of his youth and early manhood ; and he has written 
 of them all in words that never lose their grace and 
 beauty, more than does the familiar lapping of the 
 wave upon the beach, or the ever-recurring flush of 
 the sunset cloud. 
 
 Many who have never visited his boyhood home, 
 or seen the " shadowy lines of its trees," the " fort 
 upon the hill," and the breezy dome" of Deering s 
 woods, yet hear in the exquisite melody of My Lost 
 Youth that song of early memories the elemental 
 chant of the human heart, singing to itself in quiet 
 monotone of the scenes and associations which are 
 not so much remembered, as wrought into the 
 
8 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 continuous fabric of a life of which the conventional 
 distinctions of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, are 
 phases and not fragments. It is to the credit of the 
 critics, who have not failed to speak in the wise terms 
 of criticism, or in the flippant terms of disparage 
 ment, of much that Longfellow has written, it is 
 to their credit that they have passed by this lyric, 
 captivated, or puzzled, perhaps by the charm which 
 defies analysis, and compels admiration. Striking 
 as it is in form, and simple in substance, no parodist 
 has laid frivolous or profane hands upon it. Nature 
 and art are so wedded in it that the twain have indeed 
 become one ; and it will go on singing to generation 
 after generation a song that will touch the hearts of 
 men and women everywhere, like 
 
 " The song that found a path 
 
 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
 She stood in tears amid the alien corn." 
 
 This poem of boyhood memories was written when 
 Mr. Longfellow was nearing his fiftieth year, after 
 his retirement from the Cambridge professorship, 
 and when his fame had long since passed beyond the 
 region not only of his early home, but of his native 
 land. For his fame could not linger, any more than 
 could his feet, in the scenes where it was first nur 
 tured. It went forth over the earth, crossing moun 
 tains and seas, overleaping the barriers of race and 
 tongue, and finding a resting-place and home in 
 every land. Nothing, indeed, is more significant 
 in Longfellow s verse, than the ease and power with 
 
ADDRESS 9 
 
 which it has spoken to the people of every language, 
 and of every condition in life. 
 
 Dr. Edwin A. Grosvenor, who was for some years 
 connected with the American legation at Constanti 
 nople, tells of an eminent Turkish Pasha, who was, 
 in some respects, he says, the most remarkable 
 statesman among the Ottomans of the nineteenth 
 century. He was a man of inflexible honesty, and 
 naturally incurred the hostility of the privileged 
 classes. Nevertheless he served with distinction as 
 Ottoman ambassador to Persia, to France, and to 
 Russia, and was twice honored with the dignity of 
 Grand Vizier. 
 
 Better than any residence of state, says Dr. 
 Grosvenor, he loved the gray stone building in his 
 garden, in which he had collected the largest private 
 library in the Turkish empire. It contained books 
 from all over the world, and there were few among 
 them which their owner could not read. One day Dr. 
 Grosvenor was walking with him through the library, 
 and he was pointing out the special treasures it con 
 tained, and speaking of them with the enthusiasm 
 which is characteristic of a book-lover, when, taking a 
 volume from one of the shelves, he said, "Do you 
 know there is no book here which I care for more 
 than this." It was a large volume, showing inside 
 and out every sign of frequent use. Many lines in it 
 were underscored, and in the margins were written 
 frequent comments in quaint Turkish characters. 
 "Some of these pieces," he said, "I know by heart." 
 The book was a copy of Longfellow, and his 
 were the poems that soothed the busy Mussulman 
 
io LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 statesman in many a weary hour of his anxious and 
 burdened life. 
 
 But that picture is not more interesting than the 
 one, equally authenticated, of a poor lone woman 
 dwelling in a hut that stood in a bare tract of the 
 far northwestern frontier. "She had cut from an 
 illustrated paper a picture of a young girl with Long 
 fellow s poem Maidenhood printed below it, and had 
 pasted it on her wall. There, day by day, as she 
 stood at her bread-making or her washing, she gazed 
 at the young face, and pondered the words of the 
 poet, until both face and poem worked themselves 
 into her nature. A visitor who chanced to call at 
 her cabin one day, and to whom she talked of her 
 precious poem, was astonished at the truths she had 
 drawn from it, and declared that he went away with 
 new and deeper views of the meaning and beauty of 
 life." 
 
 These two pictures, of the accomplished Ottoman 
 statesman in his richly-furnished library, and of the 
 humble frontier woman with her one poem pasted on 
 the wall, illustrate the range of the appeal that 
 Longfellow makes to people in every condition of 
 life, and in every land where literature is known and 
 loved. 
 
 The explanation of this universal and unique 
 appeal is to be found, partly, in the essential nature 
 of his art. The truest art is that which reflects, in 
 its motives and methods, the simplicity of Nature, 
 and lays upon the human spirit a spell not unlike 
 that which is wrought, in a thousand familiar ways, 
 by Nature herself. 
 
ADDRESS 1 1 
 
 "The sunshine is a glorious birth" not only to 
 Wordsworth, but, consciously or unconsciously, to 
 men the world over. The dull monotone of the sea, 
 and the rippling song of the brook, are soothing 
 sounds to the ear, but he who hears them finds that, 
 in some mysterious way, they are forthwith changed 
 to dreams and fancies in his soul. The plaintive or 
 cheerful note of a lone bird in the still depths of the 
 forest, stirs in the listener a half-conscious sympathy 
 for what seems like a remote and unshared ecstasy 
 of joy or sorrow. The little flower that peeps timidly 
 forth amid the withered and tangled debris of a waste 
 place, brings a sudden light into the eye that sees it, 
 and starts thoughts that are, perhaps, "too deep for 
 tears." 
 
 It is by such means as these, simple, familiar, 
 unobtrusive, that nature often appeals to what is 
 deepest within us, and lays a wondrous spell upon 
 the imagination and the heart. And the art which 
 appeals most widely and strongly to men, shares, or 
 at least reflects this simplicity of Nature. Such is 
 preeminently the character of Longfellow s art. It 
 is simple, lucid, and human, both in its expression, 
 and in the themes with which it deals. It has other 
 notable characteristics also, like sincerity, flexibility, 
 delicacy, and tact ; but in its simplicity probably lies 
 the special reason why its appeal is, in some measure, 
 universal, like the appeal of Nature. 
 
 Closely connected with this characteristic of his 
 art, and equally interesting, is the fact that the poet 
 speaks primarily and directly to the human heart, 
 
12 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 which is the same everywhere, with the same 
 hopes, and fears, and aspirations, the same bur 
 dens, and griefs, and gropings for light, the same 
 loves, and longings, and regrets. 
 
 For the most part, whether in psalm, or legend, 
 or history, or song, he wrote of the things that 
 touch the hearts of men, and women, and little chil 
 dren ; and he made them new and surprising by 
 his art, by beauty of thought, tenderness of feeling, 
 and delicacy of form. 
 
 " It may be glorious," says Lowell, thinking and 
 speaking of Robert Burns, 
 
 " It may be glorious to write 
 Thoughts that shall glad the two or three 
 High souls, like those far stars that come in sight 
 
 Once in a century : 
 
 " But better far it is to speak 
 One simple word, which now and then 
 Shall waken their free nature in the weak 
 
 And friendless sons of men." 
 
 Now the poetry of Longfellow, like that of Burns, 
 avails not only to waken their free nature in the weak 
 and friendless sons of men, but also to glad the two 
 or three high souls. Only we must not understand, 
 by the two or three high souls, those who, from taste, 
 or caprice, or fashion, are attracted chiefly by the 
 bizarre, the passionate, the speculative, or the obscure, 
 in verse, and find therein their standards and their 
 ideals. The high souls, rather, are those who are 
 catholic enough in their tastes to rejoice equally in 
 
ADDRESS 13 
 
 the ardor of the sun, and the gentleness of the moon ; 
 in the roar of the cataract, and the ripple of the 
 brook ; in the fragrance of the May flower, and the 
 splendor of the June rose. They are those who are 
 sincere enough to recognize not only the wisdom of 
 the head, but the wisdom of the heart as well ; to 
 perceive the touch of art in the wayside shrine as well 
 as in the Parthenon ; to discern and honor Truth as 
 surely in the humble garb of a pilgrim, as in the 
 gorgeous robes of a priest. These are the veritable 
 high souls of earth, and to these Longfellow speaks, 
 as he speaks to the multitudes of undistinguished 
 men and women. 
 
 It is easy to see now, though it might not have 
 been foreseen, that the wide and rapturous response 
 that followed the appearance of many of his poems, 
 was likely to endanger their later repute. From the 
 time of Aristides, men have been inclined to resent 
 a too general repetition of an honorable title like 
 " the Just," even when rightly bestowed. One or 
 two of Longfellow s early pieces of didactic senti 
 ment were so eagerly appropriated by the public, 
 and have been so persistently quoted, and recited, and 
 sung, that, to many, they have lost their first charm ; 
 like a coin that by frequent handling has grown 
 smooth, and retains only faint traces of the mint- 
 mark which certified its value, and the sovereignty 
 by which it was issued. It is interesting, therefore, 
 to find so competent and exacting a judge as Mr. 
 Churton Collins, declaring in a recent review, that 
 "the Psalm of Life is a noble poem; and all the 
 mouthings of it in Infant Schools, and Christian 
 
14 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 Associations, and all the strummings of middle-class 
 pianos, will never make it other than noble." It is 
 true that the Psalm of Life does not need this testi 
 mony to its nobility, but the testimony is, neverthe 
 less, significant as a sober and vigorous protest 
 against the captious and impatient criticism by which 
 the poem is frequently disparaged. 
 
 Mr. Collins makes, also, the interesting and sug 
 gestive remark that " such poetry as Longfellow s is 
 no more intended for critics than the Bible was 
 intended for theologians, or the spring that gushes 
 forth and refreshes the toil-worn traveler was intended 
 to supply material for analytical chemistry." 
 
 It is not necessary to give unqualified assent to 
 this picturesque dictum in all its details. To do that 
 might involve one in serious differences with the theolo 
 gians, at least, and perhaps with the chemists. But 
 it may safely be said, by way of commentary and 
 application, that whether the Bible is intended for 
 theologians or not, it is likely to survive their con 
 troversies about it, just as the refreshing spring may 
 confidently abide the tests of the analytical chemists. 
 And there is as little doubt that Longfellow will con 
 tinue to be read, and revered, and loved, whatever 
 questions may be raised by unsympathetic or un 
 friendly critics concerning the qualities or the methods 
 of his art. 
 
 The complaint is sometimes made, not alone of 
 Longfellow, but of other poets as well, that the 
 sentiment of which their poetry is the expression, is 
 familiar and common, and that being so native to 
 the human heart, and so homespun in its quality, the 
 
ADDRESS 1 5 
 
 verse in which it is enshrined is, so far, of an inferior 
 order. The criticism is, of course, shallow, and not 
 the less shallow because it often assumes a lofty tone. 
 That which is pronounced a defect in the poetry is, 
 in fact, what insures its permanent hold upon men. 
 The sentiment which is new, or strange, or paradox 
 ical, sentiment which is peculiarly proper to prose, 
 may, in poetry also, stir a feeling of curiosity and 
 interest ; but the feeling is transient. It is like the 
 guest of an hour, whose coming, indeed, is welcome, 
 but whose visit is of brief significance, and is soon 
 forgotten. But the sentiment which is familiar, 
 because it is the spontaneous flowering of our nature, 
 is perennial and abiding ; and is like the friend whose 
 accustomed place is by the intimate hearth-fire, and 
 whose absence makes a void that cannot be filled. 
 
 Poetry which is the product of ingenious conceits, 
 and subtle speculations, and morbid fancies, may 
 have a temporary vogue, and make a special appeal 
 to individuals ; but the poetry which clings to the 
 memory, and comforts, and refreshes, and purifies 
 the heart, is that which deals sincerely and nobly 
 with the primal feelings of love, and duty, and sor 
 row, and the home affections, and the sweetness of 
 childhood, and the serenity of age, and the reverent 
 fearlessness of death. The one kind of poetry is the 
 curious, and often beautiful, fabric wrought by the 
 human intellect, the other is the human reflection, 
 more or less imperfect, of the divine wisdom which 
 has made us what we are. 
 
 A human invention, like the telephone for example, 
 at its first appearance startles and amazes us by what 
 
1 6 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 seems like the exhibition of a power hitherto unre- 
 vealed. In a brief time it becomes merely the me 
 dium of ordinary business or of friendly intercourse, 
 and takes an unobtrusive place among the lower 
 things that minister to our convenience. It ceases to 
 be even a marvel to us. But the lightning, that has 
 played along the horizon or flashed from the clouds 
 for unnumbered centuries, always the same, continues 
 to waken within us emotions of wonder and awe. 
 The appreciation of Longfellow, like the appreciation 
 of all true poetry, demands of us an attitude of sym 
 pathy and reverence for the things which, because 
 they are not of human origin, are ever-repeated, and 
 fundamental, and commonplace. 
 
 Longfellow was a poet of the fireside, but he was 
 also, and scarcely less, a poet of the sea. In his 
 boyhood, his imagination was charmed by the 
 4 * beauty and mystery of the ships," in his seaport 
 home. In his college days, he was a frequent and 
 interested visitor to the neighboring ship-building 
 yard on Maquoit Bay, and followed eagerly the sev 
 eral stages in the construction of a ship, from the 
 laying of the keel to the stepping of the masts. In 
 his manhood, he wrote, with keen delight, the beau 
 tiful seaside idyl, The Building of the Skip, in which 
 the art of the poet gave a fine touch of sentiment and 
 romance to the age-long art of the ship-builder ; and 
 closed the idyl with the fervid patriotic outburst which 
 drew tears from the patient eyes of our Great-heart 
 Lincoln, and from his lips the exclamation, "It is a 
 wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that ! " 
 
 "I prefer the seaside to the country," he once 
 
ADDRESS 1 7 
 
 remarked; "the idea of liberty is much stronger 
 there." He turned his eyes away from the meadows 
 and the mountains, and fastened his thoughts upon 
 * the magic of the sea." As he gazed off upon 
 the deep, his fancy was lured and captivated by its 
 mystery and never-failing fascination. The islands 
 and forts of Casco Bay, the fog-bells and beacons, the 
 alternation of mist and sunshine, the subdued cadence 
 and the hoarse cry of the waves, the dancing boats 
 of the fishermen and the stately canvas of coastwise 
 vessels, all these things gave impulse and charm 
 to his imagination. And so he wrote of The Beacon, 
 of The Lighthouse, of The Phantom Ship, of Sea 
 weed, of The Wreck of the Hesperus, of The Reef 
 of Normals Woe, and of many a scene that brings 
 us a transient whiff of the ocean breath. Figures 
 and metaphors drawn from the sea are everywhere in 
 his poetry, from the "forlorn and shipwrecked 
 brother sailing o er life s stormy main ", to the beau 
 tiful little sermon spoken by the clergyman to the bride 
 and groom as they stand on the happy deck of the 
 newly-builded ship, a sermon as fit for us as it was 
 for them : 
 
 " Like unto ships far off at sea, 
 
 Outward or homeward bound are we ; 
 
 Before, behind, and all around, 
 
 Floats and swings the horizon s bound ; 
 
 Seems at its distant rim to rise 
 
 And climb the crystal wall of the skies, 
 
 And then again to turn and sink, 
 
 As if we could slide from its outer brink. 
 
 Ah ! it is not the sea, 
 
1 8 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, 
 
 But ourselves 
 
 That rock and rise 
 
 With endless and uneasy motion, 
 
 Now touching the very skies, 
 
 Now sinking into the depths of ocean. 
 
 Ah ! if our souls but poise and swing, 
 
 Like the compass in its brazen ring, 
 
 Ever level, and ever true 
 
 To the toil and the task we have to do, 
 
 We shall sail securely, and safely reach 
 
 The Fortunate Isles on whose shining beach 
 
 The sights we see and the sounds we hear, 
 
 Will be those of joy, and not of fear." 
 
 The divine Sir Philip Sidney, as his contem 
 poraries, not without reason delighted to call him, 
 remarks in his Apologie for Poetrie, that of all 
 sciences the Poet is monarch. " He cometh to you 
 with words set in delightful proportion ; * * and with 
 a tale, forsooth, he cometh to you, with a tale which 
 holdeth children from play, and old men from the 
 chimney corner; and pretending nothing more, doth 
 intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to 
 virtue." 
 
 Of that ideal of a poet which is as old as the art 
 itself, Longfellow is an admirable exemplification. 
 He comes to us with a tale which, by its vivid and 
 picturesque charm holds children from play, and old 
 men from the chimney corner. He unites the art of 
 a story-teller to the art of a poet. The narrative may 
 be an avowed tale, like those which were told with 
 Chaucerian grace in the Wayside Inn, or it may be 
 
ADDRESS 19 
 
 in the form of an idyl, a ballad, or an epic ; but it is 
 always well-ordered, graceful in style, lucid in lan 
 guage, and happy in the adaptation of the metre to 
 the theme. There is scarcely any variety of English 
 verse which he has not employed, and an unerring 
 instinct led him to choose the form that is fitted to 
 his subject. For the tale of Evangeline^ an idyl of 
 wondrous beauty, and tenderness, and pathos, and 
 for The Courtship of Miles Standish^ that picture of 
 stern Puritanic life, relieved by a delicate and engag 
 ing charm of humor, he made the bold and deliberate 
 choice of the hexameter form of verse. Forthwith 
 the critics, or some of them, began busily to demon 
 strate that the metre was, of necessity, harsh, halting, 
 and unsuited to English verse ; that the attempt to 
 adapt a classical metre, however musical in its origin, 
 to the peculiarities of English speech, had always 
 been a failure, and must continue to be a failure. 
 They talked learnedly of the incompatibility of 
 " quantity" and " accent." They filled their pages, 
 and vexed the air, with their remarks about " tro 
 chees," and " dactyls, "and " anapests," and the laws 
 of ancient and modern prosody. So insistent were 
 they, and so confident of the truth and importance of 
 their contention, that one might well have been dis 
 posed to adopt the impatient utterance of Burns to his 
 critics, 
 
 " What s a your jargon of your schools ? 
 Your Latin names for horns and stools ? 
 If honest Nature made you fools 
 What sairs your grammars ? " 
 
20 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 For, strange as it might seem, while they were 
 busily engaged in proving that the metre which 
 Longfellow had adopted could not be pleasant to the 
 ear, or inviting to the reader, the gentle idyl, with its 
 sweetness, and sincerity, and grace, was winning 
 its way to all hearts, and charming all ears; so that 
 the reader or hearer of it was tempted at its conclu 
 sion to apply to the poem itself the description of its 
 heroine : 
 
 " Homeward serenely she walked, with God s benediction 
 
 upon her; 
 When she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite 
 
 music." 
 
 Another experiment in metrical form was made by 
 Longfellow in the poem of Hiawatha. It may fairly 
 be called a kind of epic, for, while strikingly unique 
 in form, it is scarcely more unlike the classical type 
 of epic than is the Faery Queen of Spenser, or Ten 
 nyson s Idyls of the King. It relates the primeval 
 traditions, and describes the daily life, of a shy, 
 mysterious people, of whom the little that we know 
 invests them with a strange romantic interest. Under 
 the poet s spell, we sit by them at the door of the 
 lodge, and go with them to hunt in the forest ; we 
 shoot the rapids with them in a birch canoe that floats 
 on the river, 
 
 " Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
 Like a yellow water lily." 
 
 We are charmed observers of their wooing, and 
 guests at their wedding feast. We seem to partake 
 
ADDRESS 2 1 
 
 in their blithe fellowship with bird and beast, and to 
 share in their stoical suffering and grief. We listen 
 to their simple and stately talk, and become familiar 
 with their superstitions, and feel the charm of their 
 childlike faith. It is a strange world of primitive 
 manners and speech, in which the human life is in 
 closest contact with the life of Nature. The Indians 
 of the present day, bewildered by the conditions and 
 contaminated by the vices of modern civilization, do 
 not seem inviting subjects for poetic treatment, and 
 it was by a supreme effort of sympathetic imagination 
 that Longfellow was able to revivify their primitive 
 state, and to shed upon it an ideal glow in which it 
 will henceforth exist. The poem which does this has 
 no prototype, and will have no successor. The metre 
 in which it is written is a most skilful adaptation of 
 form to subject and purpose. It was borrowed from 
 an ancient Finnish poem, and Longfellow s unfailing 
 artistic sense perceived the fitness of it for his purpose. 
 He had to tell of the doings of a rude folk, living in 
 the forests, sharing some of the traits, as they shared 
 the companionship of the wild animal life about them, 
 having a limited stock of words and ideas, and with 
 the superstitions natural to their savage state. What 
 could be better suited to this difficult purpose than 
 the short, rapid, trochaic lines, full of parallelisms 
 and repetitions, the model of which he found in the 
 old Finnish poem, and adopted with an added grace 
 of his own? 
 
 " Ye who love a nation s legends, 
 Love the ballads of a people, 
 
22 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 That like voices from afar off 
 
 Call to us to pause and listen ; 
 
 Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, 
 
 Who have faith in God and nature, 
 
 Who believe that in all ages 
 
 Every human heart is human, 
 
 That in even savage bosoms 
 
 There are longings, yearnings, strivings, 
 
 For the good they comprehend not, 
 
 That the feeble hands and helpless, 
 
 Groping blindly in the darkness, 
 
 Touch God s right hand in the darkness, 
 
 And are lifted up and strengthened ; 
 
 Listen to this simple story, 
 
 To this song of Hiawatha." 
 
 So winning and graceful an invitation could scarcely 
 be resisted ; and the people did listen, and were 
 glad. And they identified the poet with the sweet 
 Indian singer, Chibiabos ; and when Longfellow was 
 borne to his burial his own words were the fitting 
 requiem : 
 
 11 He is dead, the sweet musician ! 
 He is gone from us forever ! 
 He has moved a little nearer 
 To the Master of all music, 
 To the Master of all singing ! " 
 
 It is a great change to pass from the poem of 
 Hiawatha, which remains absolutely unique in the 
 world of Art, to a form of verse so familiar as the 
 Sonnet, which has been cultivated by all the great 
 English poets since Wyatt and Surrey wrote in the 
 
ADDRESS 23 
 
 middle of the sixteenth century. The passage, how 
 ever, from the one form of verse to the other was not 
 difficult to the flexible genius of Longfellow. Of his 
 sonnets too much can scarcely be said in praise. 
 By virtue of them if we should take no account of his 
 other work, he belongs among the most esteemed of 
 modern poets. The sonnet is a most exacting form 
 of verse. To achieve excellence in it demands a 
 rich poetic imagination, transparent clearness, self 
 restraint, a delicate ear for musical cadence, mastery 
 of the resources of rhyme, and a sure vision of the 
 single thought to be conveyed. It is almost a 
 supreme test of imaginative and artistic genius. 
 Many poets who have written well in other forms of 
 verse have failed in this. In the hands of a master 
 it has compelling beauty and power ; but it is often 
 dull and uninviting. Longfellow was preeminently 
 an artist in the temper and structure of his verse, and 
 his sonnets are among the noblest that were produced 
 in the last century. If one were to begin to name 
 them he could not fail to make a catalogue too long 
 to be read, certainly at this time. 
 
 Some of them are revelations of his insight, and 
 speak his reverent appreciation of the great masters 
 of poetry, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. 
 Some of them are brimmed with tenderness and love 
 for the memory of dear and vanished friends. Some 
 of them throw the brilliant light of his fancy, or the 
 steady radiance of his faith, on the joys of life and 
 the mystery of death. One of them is of special 
 interest and charm to us, because it is a loving tribute 
 to a revered teacher of his college days, Parker 
 Cleaveland. 
 
24 LONGFELLOW S CENTENARY 
 
 Not a few of these sonnets it would be a pleasure 
 to read to this audience, but I content myself with 
 one, which in perfection of form and nobility of senti 
 ment is unsurpassed. It was written in his seventieth 
 year, when rjis thoughts turned, not unnaturally, to 
 the solemn event which he began to anticipate, but 
 did not fear : 
 
 " As one who long hath fled with panting breath 
 
 Before his foe, bleeding and near to fall, 
 
 I turn and set my back against the wall, 
 And look thee in the face, triumphant Death. 
 I call for aid, and no one answereth ; 
 
 I am alone with thee, who conquerest all ; 
 
 Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall, 
 For thou art but a phantom and a wraith. 
 Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt, 
 
 With armor shattered, and without a shield, 
 I stand unmoved ; do with me what thou wilt ; 
 
 I can resist no more, but will not yield. 
 This is no tournament where cowards tilt ; 
 
 The vanquished here is victor of the field." 
 
 A strange pathetic thing in the closing years of 
 Emerson s life was the failure of his memory to recall 
 the words which he wanted. He had been, through 
 his life, a master of words. They seemed to wait 
 upon him, rich, pregnant, vivid words, ready to 
 his call, like alert and obsequious servants, eager and 
 able, like Prospero s Ariel, 
 
 " To tread the ooze of the salt deep, 
 To run upon the sharp wind of the north, 
 To do him business in the veins o the earth 
 When it is baked with frost." 
 
ADDRESS 25 
 
 No homely lesson, no poetic imagining, no etherial 
 vision, but it came from him in words that carried 
 their humble or their mystic message deftly and clearly 
 into the minds of men. But the power failed him. 
 His richly-liveried retinue of slaves no longer 
 responded to his need. He groped pitifully, in vain, 
 for words and names which had always seemed to 
 anticipate his summons. 
 
 In those days of pathetic failure, a short time before 
 his own death, he was present at the funeral service 
 of his friend Longfellow. During the service he rose, 
 and going to the side of the coffin, looked intently 
 upon the face of the dead poet. A few moments 
 later he rose again, and looked once more upon the 
 familiar features. Then he said to a friend near him, 
 "That gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I 
 have entirely forgotten his name." 
 
 It was an interesting and instructive incident. The 
 name of his cherished friend might be lost in the mist 
 that had gathered about his memory, but nothing 
 could blot from his consciousness the significant fact 
 that the still face into which he looked was the face 
 of a serene and beautiful spirit. 
 
 It is not permitted us to look upon the living or the 
 dead features of the poet, except as they are chiseled 
 or drawn for us in bust or portrait ; but we may look 
 again and again, as often as we will into the poems 
 which bear the impress of his spirit, and if words fail 
 us to describe the secret of their charm, we shall still 
 feel, with Emerson, that he who wrote them was a 
 * sweet, beautiful soul." 
 
POEM 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE, D.D., 
 CLASS OF 1874 
 
A POET S CENTENARY 
 
 WE were a busy people ; axes rang, 
 And anvils ; when amid the day s turmoil 
 A melody crept ; a master came, and sang, 
 
 And charmed the workers, sweetening all the toil 
 As Orpheus did, who once, with flute to lip, 
 Helped mightily at the launching of the ship. 
 
 And in and out among us many a day 
 
 He went, this singer, with his happy strain ; 
 
 Greeted the little children at their play ; 
 Was present at the hanging of the crane ; 
 
 Blessed maidenhood and manhood ; blessed the birds ; 
 
 His life beat like the sunshine through his words. 
 
 At last he said upon occasion high, 
 
 The light of seventy summers in his face, 
 
 " O, Caesar, we who are about to die 
 
 Salute you," and he said it from this place, 
 
 With aged comrades round him who should all 
 
 So soon restore life s armor to the wall. 
 
 Those men have passed into the Silent Land, 
 Their earthly battles ended ; many a change 
 
 Has crept on us beneath time s moulding hand, 
 And on these scenes with faces new and strange ; 
 
 But not on him : the magic of his art 
 
 Still penetrates the citadel of the heart ! 
 
3O POEM 
 
 And where he once has entered to delight 
 
 And cheer and strengthen, linger he must and will ; 
 
 Oft mingling with the voices of the night 
 Some fragment of his song to haunt. us still, 
 
 Or lure to far-off realms, and unawares 
 
 Scatter in flight an Arab host of cares. 
 
 A hundred years how old he would have been ! 
 
 And yet how young ; for, as we turn his page, 
 We mark the throbbings of a life within 
 
 Old as the world and new to every age. 
 Beauty and love and sorrow from such themes 
 Uprose the golden fabric of his dreams. 
 
 II 
 
 " God sent his singers upon earth," he said ; 
 
 What were the earth without them ? what were life 
 We call so glorious but games and bread, 
 
 Sordid existence or ignoble strife, 
 Were there no voices crying to the soul, 
 Nor any vision of life s path and goal ? 
 
 The truth we need and wait for may at times 
 Break suddenly on us like a cannon s roar, 
 
 But oftener comes in faintest elfin chimes 
 
 Blown o er the border line from some dim shore, 
 
 Or, yet, as blind and helpless as we are, 
 
 It comes in perfect stillness like a star. 
 
 Ay, even invisible as the air that rolls, 
 
 Stand great unproven truths which, as we must, 
 
 We build our lives upon, and stake our souls, 
 
 Outweighing knowledge with our hope and trust, 
 
POEM 3 i 
 
 Truths which keen Science, labor as she may, 
 Can never explain and never explain away ! 
 
 Science may guide o er many a hill and plain, 
 Revealing how the pathways meet and part ; 
 
 But for life s pathless and uncharted main, 
 Whereon our surest pilot is the heart, 
 
 We need their vision unto whom belong 
 
 The mystery and the mastery of song ! 
 
 " Listen ! behold ! believe ! " are tones that fill 
 
 The poets signs and symbols manifold, 
 Those fables of the ever-singing Hill, 
 
 Isles of the Blest, cities with streets of gold, 
 Enchanted castles, youth-restoring streams, 
 And all the El Doradoes of our dreams ! 
 
 For song, indeed, is truth full-winged with power ; 
 
 A faithful voice that calls us from afar; 
 An impulse from some land where every hour 
 
 God s truth reigns sovereign ; some hope-bringing star ; 
 Some sword that stirs the spirit, as were stirred 
 The Prophets and Apostles of the Word ! 
 
 The poets go before us ; they discern, 
 
 Across these spaces of life s gloom and glow, 
 
 The great ideals that ever live and burn ; 
 
 They break all pathways without fear, and, lo, 
 
 They travel onward, keeping still in sight 
 
 Some pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. 
 
 The blessed poets save us not the kings, 
 And not the warriors; no great human wrongs 
 
 Have they e er stood for ; no great rightful things 
 But they have loved and cherished ; by their songs 
 
32 POEM 
 
 We march and prosper ; by their torches rays 
 The world moves forward into nobler ways. 
 
 And in their hands for gracious use they bear 
 
 The crowning gift of immortality ; 
 The songless cities perish ; in thin air 
 
 Empires dissolve ; old customs cease to be ; 
 But aught that is, though flung by others by, 
 The poets touch it and it cannot die ! 
 
 Still Homer s heroes live and talk and fight ; 
 
 The old men chirp of Helen ; beacons flare 
 From Ilium on to Argos in the night ; 
 
 Penelope does not of her lord despair, 
 But ravels still the day s work with her hands ; 
 And still Nausicaa by the pillar stands. 
 
 How marvelous time s world-structure named of Song, 
 With masonry of dream-stuff, and with halls 
 
 Of golden music ! yet secure and strong ; 
 Whereon decay s dark shadow never falls ; 
 
 A miracle of the masters from all lands 
 
 And from all times this house not made with hands ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ah ! silently there sweeps before my eyes 
 A vision of three poets dear to all 
 
 Who feel the touch of beauty, and who prize 
 The nobler voices that around us fall ; 
 
 Each from a different land, but all the three 
 
 Facing the morning of a world to be. 
 
POEM 33 
 
 Lo, Roman Virgil ! at whose wizard name 
 
 Things lost their power to change and pass away ; 
 
 Troy burns and does not vanish in the flame ; 
 A great queen greets the exiles ; still to-day 
 
 Men hear, as by the Tiber s side they stroll, 
 
 The funeral hymn of young Marcellus roll. 
 
 Lo, also, England s Virgil ! Arthur reigns 
 
 Forever in the halls of Camelot ; 
 Fair women sacrifice for noble gains 
 
 Who never will grow old or be forgot ; 
 And those three Queens that helped are helping still 
 The men who help to banish human ill. 
 
 And, pray, why lingers Hiawatha so ? 
 
 Why must Priscilla and John Alden stand 
 Telling the old, old tale and never go ? 
 
 Wherefore this many a year throughout the land 
 Keeps sad Evangeline her unwearied quest ? 
 The answer is our Virgil of the West 1 
 
 Three Laureates of three great peoples ! Each, 
 
 In golden phrase and music-laden words, 
 Moulded to sweetest use his country s speech ; 
 
 Loved simple things, touched ever the common chords, 
 Winning the people s heart, and lived to hear 
 The praises of the world sound in his ear. 
 
 The realm of books each ever loved to roam, 
 
 Finding new glories for the song he wove ; 
 Sang childhood, the affections of the home, 
 
 And the dear constancy of woman s love ; 
 Found tears in human things, and evermore 
 Stretched yearning hands out toward the farther shore. 
 
34 POEM 
 
 They sang that men should faint not, but endure, 
 Follow the gleam-, and wear the fadeless flower 
 
 Of hope forever ; that the goal is sure 
 
 For those who strive and trust the Heavenly Power. 
 
 They lived pure lives and gentle, nor through all 
 
 Uttered a word they ever need recall. 
 
 So like in their unlikeness, that I dare 
 
 (As else I dare not) name them side by side ; 
 
 Swayed by one mood and spirit ; as they fare, 
 The spaces close between them, else so wide ; 
 
 While their immortal echoes strike across 
 
 All tumults hitherward, nor suffer loss. 
 
 IV 
 
 Bowdoin, dear Mother, to thy listening ear 
 His step falls on these pathways as of yore ; 
 
 Again the "boy s will is the wind s will " here, 
 
 And his the " long, long thoughts " of youth once more ; 
 
 For thine he was when first the vision came 
 
 To him of the alluring face of fame. 
 
 He caught the pathos from thy murmuring pines, 
 The melody from thy river, beauty and light 
 
 From the fair sky above thee where the signs, 
 Thick with white worlds, roll solemnly by night ; 
 
 Thy son, and master in the art divine, 
 
 All this he wrought into his lustrous line. 
 
 But chiefly for he knew what springs had fed 
 
 His youthful spirit in its purpose high 
 Did he remember on the day he said 
 
 That he was old and was about to die 
 With gracious words of tenderness and truth, 
 The faces of the teachers of his youth. 
 
POEM 35 
 
 Thrice happy are such teachers, with the dower 
 Of knowledge and of counsel in their hand ! 
 
 They sit forever at the springs of power, 
 And from these quiet places of the land, 
 
 No trumpet blowing and no flag unfurled, 
 
 They shape the forces that will shape the world. 
 
 Ah ! as once more we walk these shades among, 
 
 What visions from the bygone years arise ! 
 The faces, O, the faces, how they throng, 
 
 And pass, and come again, with friendly eyes, 
 And fill for each of us, with life more vast, 
 That other present which we call the past ! 
 
 And he is of them ! Lo, the hearts that brim 
 With hope and courage, and do not grow old, 
 
 Have somewhere, somehow, learned to love like him 
 The nobler things that are not bought and sold, 
 
 Remembering the light that through life s bars 
 
 Breaks from beyond the sunset and the stars ! 
 

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 Address & poem.*. 
 HW Longfellow. 
 
 . 26, 15 Rotte. 
 
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