Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellowwas an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth27 February 1807
CityPortland, ME
CountryUnited States of America
children flower roots
Many people do not allow their principles to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing.
thinking loyal principles
Let us, then, be what we are; speak what we think; and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth.
prayer pain heart
What discord we should bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered. Then we should govern the world and not God. And do you think we should govern it better? It gives me only pain when I hear the long, wearisome petitions of people asking for they know not what. . . . Thanks-giving with a full heart-and the rest silence and submission to the divine will!
wrecks noble immortality
And in the wreck of noble lives Something immortal still survives.
strong laughing ships
Build me straight. O worthy Master! Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
men perfect-days play
O gift of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be!
music men heaven
O Music! language of the soul, Of love, of God to man; Bright beam from heaven thrilling, That lightens sorrow's weight.
life dust clouds
Each new epoch in life seems an encounter. There is a tussle and a cloud of dust, and we come out of it triumphant or crest-fallen, according as we have borne ourselves.
sweet kissing wind
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf.
waiting sun rising
Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun.
happiness unhappy too-much
The happy should not insist too much upon their happiness in the presence of the unhappy.
failure men height
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself. No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.
depression believe heart
In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
pain gun boys
A young critic is like a boy with a gun; he fires at every living thing he sees. He thinks only of his own skill, not of the pain he is giving.