The Burial Of The Poet

RICHARD HENRY DANA

In the old churchyard of his native town,
    And in the ancestral tomb beside the wall,
    We laid him in the sleep that comes to all,
    And left him to his rest and his renown.
The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped down
    White flowers of Paradise to strew his pall;--
    The dead around him seemed to wake, and call
    His name, as worthy of so white a crown.
And now the moon is shining on the scene,
    And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er
    With shadows cruciform of leafless trees,
As once the winding-sheet of Saladin
    With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more
    Mysterious and triumphant signs are these.

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

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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.

In The Churchyard At Tarrytown

Here lies the gentle humorist, who died
    In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
    A simple stone, with but a date and name,
    Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
    Here in the autumn of his days he came,
    But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
    With tints that brightened and were multiplied.
How sweet a life was his; how sweet a    death!
    Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
    Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
    Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
    A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Cross Of Snow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
    A gentle face--the face of one long dead--
    Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
    The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
    Never through martyrdom of fire was led
    To its repose; nor can in books be read
    The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
    That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
    Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
    These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
    And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Bayard Taylor

Dead he lay among his books!
The peace of God was in his looks.

As the statues in the gloom
Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb,

So those volumes from their shelves
Watched him, silent as themselves.

Ah! his hand will nevermore
Turn their storied pages o'er;

Nevermore his lips repeat
Songs of theirs, however sweet.

Let the lifeless body rest!
He is gone, who was its guest;

Gone, as travellers haste to leave
An inn, nor tarry until eve.

Traveller! in what realms afar,
In what planet, in what star,

In what vast, aerial space,
Shines the light upon thy face?

In what gardens of delight
Rest thy weary feet to-night?

Poet! thou, whose latest verse
Was a garland on thy hearse;

Th...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Burial Of The Minnisink

On sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills.    One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,
In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver lakes,
By which the Indian's soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard
Where the soft breath of evening stirred
The tall, gray forest; and a band
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows ha...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In The Churchyard At Cambridge

In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
    No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
    But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
    And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
    The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us?    No one speaks;
No color shoots into those cheeks,
    Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
    By those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?--And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
    To find her failings...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Killed At The Ford.

He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call,
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picket-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,
He was humming the words of some old song:
"Two red roses he had on his cap,
And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball
Came out of a wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill;
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a roo...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow