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Four American poets

Chapter 24: CHAPTER IV SOMETHING ABOUT THE TIMES WHEN LONGFELLOW WAS YOUNG
By Sherwin Cody
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About This Book

Aimed at young readers, this compact collection presents four readable biographical sketches of notable poets, following childhood influences, schooling, early experiments in verse, and the circumstances behind key works. Each section pairs narrative anecdotes with explanations of themes such as nature, moral conviction, and public engagement, and includes episodes about professional life, honors, and later years. Organized into short chapters that highlight formative scenes, poetic methods, and memorable incidents, the book uses plain language and illustrative detail to make poetic craft and imagery accessible while encouraging appreciation of differing temperaments and literary approaches.

CHAPTER IV
SOMETHING ABOUT THE TIMES WHEN LONGFELLOW WAS YOUNG

In the days when Longfellow was a child, people were just changing from the old fashioned style of living to ways that were new and more modern. The older men wore knee breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with big buckles, and had their long hair gathered in a knot or “club” behind.

Those were strict Puritan days, too. Everybody was very careful about going to church and keeping Sunday, and theaters were prohibited until a few years later. They do say, however, that the people drank a good deal of Jamaica rum and did other things that we should not approve of to-day.

Portland was quite a seaport, and had formerly enjoyed great business prosperity. But in the year that Longfellow was born, the embargo was put on shipping, and severe “hard times” came on. It is said “the grass literally grew upon the wharves.”

Five years after his birth, came the war of 1812. Fortifications were thrown up on Munjoy’s Hill, and privateers were fitted out in the harbor. In his beautiful poem, “My Lost Youth,” Longfellow refers to this.

This poem is very interesting when we think of the actual places to which Longfellow refers. Of course he is thinking of Portland when he writes:

Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
...
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
...
I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.

In the following lines he refers to the fortifications that were put up when he was five years old:

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er.
And the bugle wild and shrill.

On the 4th of September, 1813, the Boxer, British brig of war, was captured off the Maine coast by the American brig Enterprise, and a few days later was brought into Portland harbor. On the next day both commanders, who had been killed in the encounter, were buried in the cemetery at the foot of Munjoy’s Hill. The poet thus records his recollections of that event:

I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o’er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o’erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died.

While referring to this poem, it may be noted that Longfellow was very fond of the country, as well as of the sea, and he never lived in a city larger than Cambridge, which is really no city at all, but merely a college town. Near his home in Portland was a large piece of woodland where he was very fond of roaming about with some of his friends. He thus speaks of it in the poem:

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering’s Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
...
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy’s brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.

At the end of each verse comes the beautiful refrain—

And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Several other poems were suggested by the sights and sounds of the poet’s boyhood. One was “The Ropewalk,” describing a building that he often passed. There was also a factory where crude pottery was made and where he went and watched the turning wheel that suggested to him many years later the beautiful poem entitled “Keramos.”