In “The Light of Stars,” Longfellow does not sentimentalize those twinkling points in the night sky. But one star above holds out to him the better way of courage.
Hold those tears. I heard today the cultural revolutionary decision to remove William Penn’s statue has been cancelled. Apparently someone in the WH realized if they went forward removing the statue they might have to change the name of the bloody state too !
Shame on Portland, Maine for neglecting and then destroying his boyhood home. The British seem to have no problem with their historic places. I would love to know how those young boys became familiar with his poetry. Must have been a sharp local school teacher?
I did read that the tearing down of Longfellow's birthplace disturbed many people and led to a movement to save and restore historic landmark homes. And it seems that the house where Longfellow actually grew up belonged to his grandparents, the Wadsworths, and is indeed preserved and available for tours. I'd love to go there sometime, but whenever we are near Portsmouth we are en route somewhere far away!
Adrien, kids read Longfellow and other poets in school. That's so far from what "modern" education is like that we can hardly fathom it. His poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" was legendary and often students were required to memorize it -- or else they had it memorized because it was so often taught them in school and recited at civic events. Longfellow was revered nationally in his own lifetime and long after. And the other poets that the children read in school were likely numerous and famous. Laura Ingalls Wilder tells in the last of her Little House books of a gift her mother bought for her when her parents traveled to Iowa to put her sister in the school for the blind. It was "Tennyson's Poems." She was 16 at the time, and her parents had only a frontier schoolhouse education -- but they knew Tennyson. This is one of those things that we call a Different Universe Alert.
The first poem I ever memorized, the total number, alas, being very few, perhaps countable on one hand, sad to say -- memorization is not my friend I'm afraid. And that lack is one of the reasons I typically give for having been a math major in college. I like to say (in lighthearted fashion) that the only thing a mathematician needs to memorize is the quadratic formula, and even that can be derived in a pinch.
Where was I? Oh yeah (sidetracking being another weakness of mine): the first poem I ever memorized (not for a school assignment but out of pure love for the poem) was Longfellow's "A Fire of Driftwood - Devereux Farm, Near Marblehead" (sigh -- even just the sound of the words reading the subtitle aloud gives me joy, the assonance of "Farm" and "Mar-" providing juuuust the right touch of audible glue to the phrase... Gah! more sidetrack -- down, boy!, down...).
Anyway, the reason I even mention that here is that your reading of his "The Light of Stars" (which I hadn't heard before) gives me the same sort of, oh, I don't know exactly, but a kind of joy and satisfaction and sense of beauty that is oddly embedded within the very longing or melancholy, or even sadness and severity, of the poem's imagery. I might think those two reactions, joy and sadness, would be like trying to mix oil and water. And in lesser hands that separation and indissolubility would surely be the result.
But Longfellow, at least in these two poems, melds them magnificently. And your comments about the poem certainly aid in that appreciations of both qualities. Thank you for bringing the latter to my attention. I guess I need to read way more of him than the few I am familiar with. Slow reader that I am, are there any others of Longfellow that you would particularly recommend? I wonder if he ever wrote poems about the quadratic formula or even, sigh, the wonder and beauty of Euler's Identity?
Stanley, you have a mind like no other! I thought that you were going to tell us that the first poem you ever memorized was "Paul Revere's Ride!" But no. I'm glad you love this poem so much. The first poem of Longfellow's that I recall being taught in school (back in the Age of the Dinosaurs) was "The Song of Hiawatha." And I swear that I believe every living American of that time could at least recite one or two of the first stanzas of that poem. But somewhere along the line I had to have heard "Paul Revere's Ride" first, probably as a small child. Imagine a time when school children read Longfellow???? I will bet, however, that Longfellow was quite familiar with higher mathematics, which would have been a part of the curriculum in those days at that college in Cambridge where he was a professor.
Would we honor a poet’s passing now? Stan Rogers was no Longfellow. But he wrote of honor, loyalty and hope. I believe the Canadian legislature upon hearing of his death spontaneity rose and sang “Northwest Passage”.
I weep for what is being systematically discarded . Tony told me yesterday that the statue of William Penn is scheduled for removal from the Philadelphia on Saturday. I'm a direct lineal descendant of the first Mennonite refugees Penn invited to Pennsylvania. He actively sought out such percecuted groups and gave away his land so that others could live in peace.
My daughter, wife of Deacon Chris Phelps in Colorado Springs, just informed me that the people in P.A. stood up to Biden and won’t let them remove William Penn’s statue!
Ihave not heard any more but hope that news is true; I pray it is!!
Hold those tears. I heard today the cultural revolutionary decision to remove William Penn’s statue has been cancelled. Apparently someone in the WH realized if they went forward removing the statue they might have to change the name of the bloody state too !
Shame on Portland, Maine for neglecting and then destroying his boyhood home. The British seem to have no problem with their historic places. I would love to know how those young boys became familiar with his poetry. Must have been a sharp local school teacher?
I did read that the tearing down of Longfellow's birthplace disturbed many people and led to a movement to save and restore historic landmark homes. And it seems that the house where Longfellow actually grew up belonged to his grandparents, the Wadsworths, and is indeed preserved and available for tours. I'd love to go there sometime, but whenever we are near Portsmouth we are en route somewhere far away!
Adrien, kids read Longfellow and other poets in school. That's so far from what "modern" education is like that we can hardly fathom it. His poem, "Paul Revere's Ride" was legendary and often students were required to memorize it -- or else they had it memorized because it was so often taught them in school and recited at civic events. Longfellow was revered nationally in his own lifetime and long after. And the other poets that the children read in school were likely numerous and famous. Laura Ingalls Wilder tells in the last of her Little House books of a gift her mother bought for her when her parents traveled to Iowa to put her sister in the school for the blind. It was "Tennyson's Poems." She was 16 at the time, and her parents had only a frontier schoolhouse education -- but they knew Tennyson. This is one of those things that we call a Different Universe Alert.
The first poem I ever memorized, the total number, alas, being very few, perhaps countable on one hand, sad to say -- memorization is not my friend I'm afraid. And that lack is one of the reasons I typically give for having been a math major in college. I like to say (in lighthearted fashion) that the only thing a mathematician needs to memorize is the quadratic formula, and even that can be derived in a pinch.
Where was I? Oh yeah (sidetracking being another weakness of mine): the first poem I ever memorized (not for a school assignment but out of pure love for the poem) was Longfellow's "A Fire of Driftwood - Devereux Farm, Near Marblehead" (sigh -- even just the sound of the words reading the subtitle aloud gives me joy, the assonance of "Farm" and "Mar-" providing juuuust the right touch of audible glue to the phrase... Gah! more sidetrack -- down, boy!, down...).
Anyway, the reason I even mention that here is that your reading of his "The Light of Stars" (which I hadn't heard before) gives me the same sort of, oh, I don't know exactly, but a kind of joy and satisfaction and sense of beauty that is oddly embedded within the very longing or melancholy, or even sadness and severity, of the poem's imagery. I might think those two reactions, joy and sadness, would be like trying to mix oil and water. And in lesser hands that separation and indissolubility would surely be the result.
But Longfellow, at least in these two poems, melds them magnificently. And your comments about the poem certainly aid in that appreciations of both qualities. Thank you for bringing the latter to my attention. I guess I need to read way more of him than the few I am familiar with. Slow reader that I am, are there any others of Longfellow that you would particularly recommend? I wonder if he ever wrote poems about the quadratic formula or even, sigh, the wonder and beauty of Euler's Identity?
What were we talking about again? :-)
Stanley, you have a mind like no other! I thought that you were going to tell us that the first poem you ever memorized was "Paul Revere's Ride!" But no. I'm glad you love this poem so much. The first poem of Longfellow's that I recall being taught in school (back in the Age of the Dinosaurs) was "The Song of Hiawatha." And I swear that I believe every living American of that time could at least recite one or two of the first stanzas of that poem. But somewhere along the line I had to have heard "Paul Revere's Ride" first, probably as a small child. Imagine a time when school children read Longfellow???? I will bet, however, that Longfellow was quite familiar with higher mathematics, which would have been a part of the curriculum in those days at that college in Cambridge where he was a professor.
Would we honor a poet’s passing now? Stan Rogers was no Longfellow. But he wrote of honor, loyalty and hope. I believe the Canadian legislature upon hearing of his death spontaneity rose and sang “Northwest Passage”.
I weep for what is being systematically discarded . Tony told me yesterday that the statue of William Penn is scheduled for removal from the Philadelphia on Saturday. I'm a direct lineal descendant of the first Mennonite refugees Penn invited to Pennsylvania. He actively sought out such percecuted groups and gave away his land so that others could live in peace.
So sad to read this
I'm immeasurably sad over it.
My daughter, wife of Deacon Chris Phelps in Colorado Springs, just informed me that the people in P.A. stood up to Biden and won’t let them remove William Penn’s statue!
Did they prevail? I hope so! Thank you for that bit of good news.