Mezzo Cammin

Half of my life is gone, and I have let
    The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
    The aspiration of my youth, to build
    Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
    Of restless passions chat would not be stilled,
    But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
    Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half way up the hill, I see the Past
    Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--
    A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.--
    And hear above me on the autumnal blast
    The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To An Old Danish Song-Book

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Gaspar Becerra

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

My Cathedral

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Endymion

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Three Friends Of Mine

I

When I remember them, those friends of mine,
    Who are no longer here, the noble three,
    Who half my life were more than friends to me,
    And whose discourse was like a generous wine,
I most of all remember the divine
    Something, that shone in them, and made us see
    The archetypal man, and what might be
    The amplitude of Nature's first design.
In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands;
    I cannot find them.    Nothing now is left
    But a majestic memory.    They meanwhile
Wander together in Elysian lands,
    Perchance remembering me, who am bereft
    Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile.


II

In Attica thy birthplace should have been,
    Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas
    Encircl...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Travels By The Fireside

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
    And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
    Points to the misty main,

It drives me in upon myself
    And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
    And still more pleasant dreams,

I read whatever bards have sung
    Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
    Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again
    The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
    The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall
    Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
    And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
    Beneath centennial trees,
Throug...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hawthorne

MAY 23, 1864

How beautiful it was, that one bright day
    In the long week of rain!
Though all its splendor could not chase away
    The omnipresent pain.

The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,
    And the great elms o'erhead
Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms
    Shot through with golden thread.

Across the meadows, by the gray old manse,
    The historic river flowed:
I was as one who wanders in a trance,
    Unconscious of his road.

The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;
    Their voices I could hear,
And yet the words they uttered seemed to change
    Their meaning to my ear.

For the one face I looked for was not there,
    The one low voice was mute;
Only an unseen presence filled the air,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Gleam Of Sunshine

This is the place.    Stand still, my steed,
    Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy Past
    The forms that once have been.

The Past and Present here unite
    Beneath Time's flowing tide,
Like footprints hidden by a brook,
    But seen on either side.

Here runs the highway to the town;
    There the green lane descends,
Through which I walked to church with thee,
    O gentlest of my friends!

The shadow of the linden-trees
    Lay moving on the grass;
Between them and the moving boughs,
    A shadow, thou didst pass.

Thy dress was like the lilies,
    And thy heart as pure as they:
One of God's holy messengers
    Did walk with me that day.

I saw the branches of the trees
    Bend down t...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where, amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.

In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Moonlight

As a pale phantom with a lamp
    Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
    Mysterious chambers of the air.

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
    As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
    And at the windows seen again.

Until at last, serene and proud
    In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
    Supreme as Empress of the Night.

I look, but recognize no more
    Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
    Is an enchanted avenue.

All things are changed.    One mass of shade,
    The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
    I walk as in a foreign town.

The very ground b...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow