Woodstock Park

Here in a little rustic hermitage
    Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great,
    Postponed the cares of king-craft to translate
    The Consolations of the Roman sage.
Here Geoffrey Chaucer in his ripe old age
    Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon or late
    The venturous hand that strives to imitate
    Vanquished must fall on the unfinished page.
Two kings were they, who ruled by right divine,
    And both supreme; one in the realm of Truth,
    One in the realm of Fiction and of Song.
What prince hereditary of their line,
    Uprising in the strength and flush of youth,
    Their glory shall inherit and prolong?

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

Old St. David's At Radnor

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

Moonlight

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Children's Crusade - [A Fragment.]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Lighthouse

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

English

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Chaucer

An old man in a lodge within a park;
    The chamber walls depicted all around
    With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound.
    And the hurt deer.    He listeneth to the lark,
Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark
    Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;
    He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound,
    Then writeth in a book like any clerk.
He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote
    The Canterbury Tales, and his old age
    Made beautiful with song; and as I read
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note
    Of lark and linnet, and from every page
    Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Prelude - The Wayside Inn - Part First

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.

As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.

A region of repose it seems,
A place of slumber and of dreams,
Remote among the wooded hills!
For there no noisy railway speeds,
Its torch-race scattering smoke and...

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

A Fact, And An Imagination, Or, Canute And Alfred, On The Seashore

The Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair,
Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty,
To aid a covert purpose, cried "O ye
Approaching Waters of the deep, that share
With this green isle my fortunes, come not where
Your Master's throne is set." Deaf was the Sea;
Her waves rolled on, respecting his decree
Less than they heed a breath of wanton air.
Then Canute, rising from the invaded throne,
Said to his servile Courtiers, "Poor the reach,
The undisguised extent, of mortal sway!
He only is a King, and he alone
Deserves the name (this truth the billows preach)
Whose everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven, obey."
This just reproof the prosperous Dane
Drew, from the influx of the main,
For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain
At oriental flattery;

William Wordsworth

The Musician's Tale - The Wayside Inn - Part Third

THE MOTHER'S GHOST

Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade;
    I myself was young!
There he hath wooed him so winsome a maid;
    Fair words gladden so many a heart.

Together were they for seven years,
And together children six were theirs.

Then came Death abroad through the land,
And blighted the beautiful lily-wand.

Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade,
And again hath he wooed him another maid,

He hath wooed him a maid and brought home a bride,
But she was bitter and full of pride.

When she came driving into the yard,
There stood the six children weeping so hard.

There stood the small children with sorrowful heart;
From before her feet she thrust them apart.

She gave to them neither ale nor bread;
"...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For A Statue Of Chaucer At Woodstock

Such was old Chaucer. such the placid mien
Of him who first with harmony inform'd
The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt
For many a cheerful day. these ancient walls
Have often heard him, while his legends blithe
He sang; of love, or knighthood, or the wiles
Of homely life: through each estate and age,
The fashions and the follies of the world
With cunning hand portraying. Though perchance
From Blenheim's towers, o stranger, thou art come
Glowing with Churchill's trophies; yet in vain
Dost thou applaud them, if thy breast be cold
To him, this other hero; who, in times
Dark and untaught, began with charming verse
To tame the rudeness of his native land.

Mark Akenside