Chapter Chapter 5 of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

Hexameters.

Longfellow had chosen a peculiar metre for Evangeline. The use of hexameter verse had not been deemed consistent with the principles of English versification, and had not been employed with marked success. It had, however, been used by the German poet Goethe with very pleasing effect in his pastoral poem Hermann und Dorothea; and Longfellow, who had experimented slightly with the measure, determined to use it here. The poet was invariably happy in his choice of metrical forms; the reader of his poems is inevitably struck with the appropriateness of the measure to the theme. As Dr. Holmes says in respect to the metre of Evangeline:--

"The hexameter has been often criticised, but I do not believe any other measure could have told that lovely story with such effect, as we feel when carried along the tranquil current of these brimming, slow- moving, soul-satisfying lines. . . . The poet knows better than his critics the length of step which best befits his muse."¹

Hiawatha.

The second of these great compositions makes use of a distinctively native theme. Longfellow had for some time been attracted to the American Indian as a subject, and finally hit upon a plan for weaving together a number of the Indian traditions in narrative form. The Finnish epic Kalevala suggested an appropriate measure and in other ways served as a model for the poem, which he wrote with intense enjoyment. As in the case of Evangeline, the form selected proved remarkably apt to the treatment of this primitive theme. The trochaic tetrameter, -- using classic terminology, -- and the employment of parallelism and repetition, gave an elemental effect to the narrative that was both appropriate and rhythmically pleasing. Hiawatha is the epic of the red man, and the romantic, the heroic phase of Indian nature has never been better presented. Considerable criticism greeted its appearance, and there were many charges of plagiarism; nevertheless, the poem was immensely popular, and is now generally regarded as the poet's most original and most satisfactory achievement.

The demands of the class-room had increased with the years and college duties became more and more irksome to the poet. "This college work is like a great hand laid on all the strings of my lyre, stopping their vibrations," he writes in his journal in 1850. In 1854, Longfellow resigned the professorship and gave himself wholly to his vocation as a poet. Following Hiawatha, his next important work was the delightful Puritan pastoral, The Courtship of Miles Standish -- a bit of refreshing human comedy drawn from the sober annals of Plymouth. The poem was published in 1858. Three years later, in 1861, the happiness and serenity of Longfellow's life were suddenly broken by the shocking accident which caused the death of his wife. Sitting in the library of their home, sealing some packages of their little daughter's curls, Mrs. Longfellow's dress caught fire. She died the following day. The deep grief of his loss the poet bore in silence. After his death, there was found in his portfolio the sonnet entitled The Cross of Snow, written in 1879, the single utterance of his grief in verse.

In Middle Life.

"There is a mountain in the distant West
   That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
   Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
   These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
   And seasons, changeless since the day she died."

To occupy his mind and alleviate his sorrow, the poet began a translation of Dante. Upon this he worked at intervals for several years. The Divine Comedy was completed in 1867; it holds a place among the best versions of Dante's work in English. Meanwhile the first part of Tales of a Wayside Inn had appeared in 1863; in 1872 and 1873, the remaining parts were published.