Longfellow (1807-1882) Holmes (1809-1894)

Lowell (1819-1891) Bryant (1794-1878)

Fireside Poets

Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

“A Psalm of Life”

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, verses

"Life is but an empty dream!"

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

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.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life, temporary encampment

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,--act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing

Learn to labor and to wait.

About the poem: This poem was written in 1838 after

Longfellow unexpectedly lost both his wife and the child

they were expecting.

Written in QUATRAINS: 4 line stanzas

QUESTIONS:

1. What is Longfellow trying to convince his

readers to do?

2. Does Longfellow have a positive or negative

attitude towards life? How do we know?

3. What ROMANTIC elements are present?

Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

“The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew* calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveler hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands

Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler** calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveler to the shore.

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

* large wading bird associated with the evening

**person who tends horses at an inn or stable

Efface: erase; wipe out

QUESTIONS: 1. What images suggest that the traveller is

nearing death and/or has died?

2. Where does Longfellow use inverted

word order (verb placed before the subject)?

3. What is the effect of the repetition of

the line “The tide rises, the tide falls”?

4. What ROMANTIC elements are present?

Oliver Wendell Holmes

“ Old Ironsides”

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see

That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,

And burst the cannon's roar;

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,

Where knelt the vanquished foe,

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood

And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,

Or know the conquered knee;

The harpies of the shore shall pluck

The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk

Should sink beneath the wave;

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

And there should be her grave;

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the God of storms,

The lightning and the gale!

About the poem: This poem was written

about the U.S.S. Constitution, built in 1797,

which played a part in the War of 1812. It out-

sailed many British ships! Written in 1830, the

poem was Holmes’s attempt to thwart plans

to demolish the ship.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is Holmes trying to convince

people to do with the retired ship?

2. What doe s the name of the ship imply?

What other names does he call it in

the poem?

3. Which seems more important—the ship

itself or the historic role? Why?

Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The Chambered Nautilus”

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their stream-

ing hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old

no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice

that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Explain the Extended Metaphor:

“Thanatopsis”

William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty; and she glides

Into his darker musings, with a mild

And healing sympathy that steals away

Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;--

Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around--

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--

Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up

Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

What do you think the “narrow house”

represents? How can you tell?

What is the italicized portion of the

poem saying?

What has been the mood of the poem up until this point?

“Thanato

psis”

cont’d

William

Cullen Bryant

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world -- with kings,

The powerful of the earth -- the wise, the good,

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills tomb

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, -- the vales

Stretching in pensive quietness between;

The venerable woods -- rivers that move

In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,

Are shining on the sad abodes of death

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom. -- Take the wings

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, desert

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,

Save his own dashings -- yet the dead are there:

And millions in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down

In their last sleep -- the dead reign there alone

What is NATURE’S role in

this poem?

With the word “Yet” how

does the mood change?

So shalt thou rest -- and what if thou withdraw

In silence from the living, and no friend

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care

Plod on, and each one as before will chase

His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come

And make their bed with thee. As the long train

Of ages glides away, the sons of men--

The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,

The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,

By those, who in their turn, shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Where do we see

PERSONIFICATION?

James Russell Lowell

“The First Snowfall”

THE snow had begun in the gloaming,

And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway

With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock

Wore ermine too dear for an earl,

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree

Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara white marble

Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, rooster

The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,

And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window

The noiseless work of the sky,

And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,

Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn

Where a little headstone stood;

How the flakes were folding it gently,

As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,

Saying, 'Father, who makes it snow?'

And I told of the good All-Father

Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snowfall,

And thought of the leaden sky

That arched o'er our first great sorrow,

When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience

That fell from that cloud like snow,

Flake by flake, healing and hiding

The scar of our deep-plunged woe.

And again to the child I whispered,

'The snow that husheth all,

Darling, the merciful Father

Alone can make it fall! '

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;

And she, kissing back, could not know

That my kiss was given to her sister,

Folded close under deepening snow.

About the poem: James Russell Lowell was

inspired to write this poem because of the

death of his own young daughter.

Allegory is a form of extended metaphor. Characters are often

personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. Thus

an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a

symbolic meaning. In what way is snowfall treated ALLEGORICALLY here?

In other words, what does snow represent?

How does the snow act as a healer?

(look at the 8th stanza)

What is the mood of this poem?

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