Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine—then still part of Massachusetts—on February 27, 1807, the second son in a family of eight children. His mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, was the daughter of a Revolutionary War hero. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a prominent Portland lawyer and later a member of Congress.
About Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
note: This means that "Charley" their beloved son, knew his maternal grandfather was a Revolutionary War Hero and must have heard the stories about him as he was growing up. Possibly these stories affected him and he wanted to join the service when he saw the opportunity he did during the Civil War (War between the States) Union vs the Confederates.
2nd Wife Frances Appleton (or Fanny) - had 2 sons with him -
Charley & Ernst:
His love for Fanny is evident in the following lines from his only love poem, the sonnet "The Evening Star"
[63] which he wrote in October 1845: "O my beloved, my sweet
Hesperus! My morning and my evening star of love!" He once attended a ball without her and noted, "The lights seemed dimmer, the music sadder, the flowers fewer, and the women less fair.
note: Hsperus is the Roman name for Venus the evening Star. -
The poet's biography said he was seen as an extremely sensitive soul, a Pisces - so when Fanny died from a fire set by accident with either the match or wax she was burning, trying to save some hair locks from her sons - the poet tried to save her by rolling atop of her - and that is why he wore a long beard the rest of his life, (severely burned)
He had difficulty coping with the death of his second wife.
[77] Longfellow was very quiet, reserved, and private; in later years, he was known for being unsocial and avoided leaving home
Longfellow's personality has become part of his reputation. He has been presented as a gentle, placid, poetic soul, an image perpetuated by his brother Samuel Longfellow who wrote an early biography which specifically emphasized these points.
[141] As James Russell Lowell said, Longfellow had an "absolute sweetness, simplicity, and modesty".
[126] At Longfellow's funeral, his friend
Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "a sweet and beautiful soul".
[142] In reality, his life was much more difficult than was assumed. He suffered from
neuralgia, which caused him constant pain, and he had poor eyesight.
In the last two decades of his life, he often received requests for autographs from strangers, which he always sent.
[120] John Greenleaf Whittier suggested that it was this massive correspondence which led to Longfellow's death: "My friend Longfellow was driven to death by these incessant demands".
[121]
Contemporaneous writer
Edgar Allan Poe wrote to Longfellow in May 1841 of his "fervent admiration which [your] genius has inspired in me" and later called him "unquestionably the best poet in America"
note: He also wrote
"The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" (Revolutionary War hero)
Paul Revere’s Ride Lyrics The biographical semi-fictional story of the Boston silversmith & Patriot:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the
eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, --
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
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