Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
Favorite Poems 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was the most popular American poet of his time, and one of the most famous American poets of all time. It has been said that certain of his poems — the long narratives Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha most notably — were once read in every literate home in America. A former teacher who fulfilled his dream to make a living as a poet, Longfellow taught at Bowdoin and Harvard, was eventually honored for his poetry with degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, and is one of the few Americans to have a monument dedicated to his memory in Westminster Abbey. This choice collection of his works, which reflects his mastery of a rich variety of poetic forms and meters, includes one of his best narrative poems, The Courtship of Miles Standish. Here, too, are such famous poems as ‘The Village Blacksmith, ‘ ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus, ‘ ‘The Children’s Hour, ‘ ‘Paul Revere’s Ride, ‘ and other poems on subjects ranging from lost youth and Giotto’s Tower to slavery and the building of a ship. Includes a selection from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: ‘Paul Revere’s Ride.’

Table of Content

From Voices of the Night

  Hymn to the Night

  A Psalm of Life

  The Reaper and the Flowers

  The Light of Stars

From Ballads and Other Poems

  The Wreck of the Hesperus

  The Village Blacksmith

  The Rainy Day

  Excelsior

From Poems on Slavery

  The Slave’s Dream

From The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

  The Bridge

  The Day Is Done

  The Arrow and the Song

From The Seaside and the Fireside

  The Building of the Ship

  The Secret of the Sea

‘From The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems’

  The Courtship of Miles Standish

‘From the subsection ‘Birds of Passage; Flight the First’:’

  The Ladder of Saint Augustine

  My Lost Youth

  Santa Filomena

From Tales of a Wayside Inn (in three parts: 1863; 1872; and 1873 in the volume Aftermath)

  ‘The Children’s Hour (1859; from the subsection ‘Birds of Passage: Flight the Second’ in the 1863 volume)’

  Paul Revere’s Ride (The Landlord’s Tale in Part First of the Tales)

  Elizabeth (The Theologian’s Tale in Part Third of the Tales)

From Flower-de-Luce

  Christmas Bells

  Giotto’s Tower

  ‘The Poets (Included in the subsection ‘A Book of Sonnets’ in complete-works editions)’

Translations

  ‘Beware! (1836?; from the anonymous German ‘Hüt du dich!’; first published in Voices of the Night, 1839)’

  ‘Retribution (1836?; one of the ‘Poetic Aphorisms’ from the Sinngedichte by Friedrich von Logau, 1604-1655, first published in 1845)’