Marian H | Poetry to Calm and Encourage - A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow @marianhreads | Uploaded December 2022 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Henry W. Longfellow - a contemporary and friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne - is oft overlooked these days as an old-fashioned American poet, at best quaint and at worst untalented. "Paul Revere's Ride" has become more notable for its historic inaccuracies than for being great poetry. However, being an incorrigible lover of Romanticism, I have always liked Longfellow's style of poetry, even if it is a bit sappy or flowery at times.
"A Psalm of Life" is a carpe-diem call worthy of the Dead Poets Society . . . a kindly entreaty to make your days count, find strength in your heart and in God, and leave the world a nicer place for the next person. Though towering with idealism in his vision of "lives sublime," Longfellow grounds us in a final line of wisdom - "learn to labor and to wait."
Full text at the Poetry Foundation: poetryfoundation.org/poems/44644/a-psalm-of-life
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Book reviews: classicsconsidered.com
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Henry W. Longfellow - a contemporary and friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne - is oft overlooked these days as an old-fashioned American poet, at best quaint and at worst untalented. "Paul Revere's Ride" has become more notable for its historic inaccuracies than for being great poetry. However, being an incorrigible lover of Romanticism, I have always liked Longfellow's style of poetry, even if it is a bit sappy or flowery at times.
"A Psalm of Life" is a carpe-diem call worthy of the Dead Poets Society . . . a kindly entreaty to make your days count, find strength in your heart and in God, and leave the world a nicer place for the next person. Though towering with idealism in his vision of "lives sublime," Longfellow grounds us in a final line of wisdom - "learn to labor and to wait."
Full text at the Poetry Foundation: poetryfoundation.org/poems/44644/a-psalm-of-life
***
Book reviews: classicsconsidered.com
Goodreads: goodreads.com/classicsconsidered
Wishlist: throne.me/u/classicsconsidered
![How to Read More Books [PARODY]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PdXzbffv5pY/hqdefault.jpg "How to Read More Books [PARODY]
Sharing some of my best reading advice for those looking to become well read in 2022.
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