I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones

Of their dead selves to higher things.

Lowell, in his essay on Wordsworth, tells us that he knows of but one long poem-the Odyssey-which will bear consecutive reading. If, then, interest does not attach to all the parts of a long poem, we should be thankful to a poet who can and does write interesting short ones. The author, seeing the beginning, middle and end of the poem, will be more apt, if he can, to make them interestingly symmetrical. It is partly on account of the shortness of the individual poems that we have selected in this section the "Birds of Passage" and the "Tales of a Wayside Inn" to study as representatives of Longfellow's poetical power.

The different parts of the poems in each collection are of nearly uniform merit, and all of them must stand or fall because of their merit as a whole, for they will not endure because of the brilliancy of single disconnected passages. The lines of thought in them do not differ from the lines of thought in the other poems of Longfellow. They were written at a time when the nation was passing through a critical period in its history, yet one would search the poems in vain for any extended allusion to it. In this respect he differs widely from Lowell, many of whose poems were written with the express intention of arousing men to political action permeated with deep moral purpose. Many of the events connected with the development of the nation are susceptible of poetic treatment, but Longfellow made little use of them, although they might well have been adapted for subjects in the "Tales of a Wayside Inn." On the other hand, Lowell was a political poet, and with the spirit of a Puritan proclaimed the need of the highest morality in the political actions of man. It is one of the limitations of Longfellow that he does not seek to arouse men so that they will render to Cæsar the things that be Cæsar's. In his poetry we do not find lines similar in tone to those in Lowell's "Crisis:"

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side

Some great cause God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

While Longfellow does not seek to influence the political actions of men, there is no uncertainty about his words concerning the individual. Had he written of political life he would have been more in harmony with the swing of American life, but the traits of individualism which he presents are deep and abiding. Though limited in the application of his thought, he asserts for the individual the need of truth, purity and righteousness. In doing this he deals with fundamental principles, for moral wholeness in man is the source from which pass outwards the impulses to the varied lines of moral action. The entire poem, "The Ladder of St. Augustine," is expressive of the need of individual purification.

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds

That have their roots in thoughts of ill;

Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the noble will ;

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

But it is not a self-centered world of selfishness of which he sings. All are parts of one moral universe, and the heightened moral tone has its influence on all others. In "Santa Filomena" he tells us:

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought
Our hearts in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls

And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

This influence is not transitory. In the "Psalm of Life" he exhorts to action that our lives may be a guide and inspiration

to men, while in "Charles Sumner" he returns to the theme and sums up the enduring results of human nobleness.

In the "Birds of Passage" there is a succession of poems which reveal personal feelings, and of descriptive poems which largely predominate in the last two "Flights." It does not take long to decide which of the two classes contains the best poems. With but few exceptions the descriptive poems are not especially interesting.

True, his songs were not divine;

Were not songs of that high art,
Which, as winds do in the pine,
Find an echo in each heart;
But the mirth

Of this green earth

Laughed and revelled in his line.

Thus Longfellow sings of Oliver Basselin, but his own lines do not laugh and revel. They are too literal and do not show us ideal possibilities. The reader sees as much as the poet, who does not suggest anything beyond the facts which he states. Longfellow did not possess in high degree that which Lowell has called "the shaping imagination, which is the criterion of a poet." A bird's nest on an Emperor's tent, the execution of a common soldier, the sinking of a ship, a city of Italy, a Dutch scene, or a castle in Spain, are not especially interesting when we see nothing more than the scenes themselves. We turn from these poems to those of the other class which seem ever to be telling us that

The spirit world around this world of sense

Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere

Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense

A breath of more ethereal air.

It is when dealing with the relation of man to this world that Longfellow writes his strongest and most suggestive poems. Yet he suggests the real rather than the ideal. He attempts to reproduce strongly what has actually taken place. His is the steady glow of the past, rather than the more brilliant but less certain light of the future. This is especially true of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn" which are quiet fireside poems about the actions of men. The ones who tell them are men of reverent mood. The Sicilian is the least somber of them all :

Much too of music was his thought;
The melodies and measures fraught
With sunshine and the open air,

Of vineyards and the singing sea

Of his beloved Sicily.

His story of the transformation of a monk into an ass is somewhat droll. Even the landlord whom we might expect to be jovial, was

Grave in his aspect and attire,

and strove to uphold the dignity of his ancestors.

With such a

somber, stately landlord we need not expect that the stories told will all be mirthful.

The "Tales" would be interesting even if they were in prose and of the same length as now. The subjects are varied though none concern the present. Old history, old traditions, old religious life, old customs are pleasantly portrayed and we give ourselves up to enjoy the stories, for they are not made a vehicle in which to carry on the discussions of a theory. They are not argumentative, but simply tell of what has been, and though entertaining are neither amusing nor witty. They appeal to quiet thought and feeling, and were not meant to be entertainment for idle hours. In some respects "Paul Revere's Ride" is the most interesting because it touches the spirit of nationalism, and recalls the struggles by which the Colonies became free. The "Legend Beautiful" portrays one phase of the deep desires and aspirations of the pious minds of the Middle Ages. The remainder develop personal themes and are cast in an antique mold. Though they are about men, here and there are lines which show that Longfellow was a close observer of nature. The description of a falcon, with

The sudden scythe-like sweep of wings that dare
The headlong plunge through eddying gulfs of air,

is a touch, graphic and exact enough to find place in a scientific book.

Lewes justly says: "The effect of poetry is a compound of music and suggestion; this music and this suggestion are intermingled in words, which to alter is to alter the effect. For words in poetry are not, as in prose, simple representatives of

objects and ideas; they are parts of an organic whole — they are tones in the harmony." Of Longfellow's artistic skill there can be no doubt. Tennyson's praise of him as one

Who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones,

is not at all misapplied. It is the recognition of one poet's merits by another poet, and is the more worthy of notice as it came from one who was himself a master of metrical harmony. A part of the pleasure in Longfellow arises from the variety and propriety of the meter, but a few specimens could not convey an adequate idea of the rhythmical movement of the mass of the poems; for they would give but few tones in the harmony which is complete only when we have combined the many tones. The "Birds of Passage" are many-winged, and will well repay a careful study of the subtle adaptation of sound to sense. While this power of skillfully handling the meter does not prove the greatest poet, still it must be present, and those who may perchance grow weary of the prevailing somberness of these poems can find at least some rest in the harmony of the meter in which there is no discord to mark its even flow.

These two collections do not pretend to develop a theory of poetry or a philosophy of art or of life. Not brilliant, not exciting, not dealing with the present, they have certain evident characteristics. Without being philosophical, they deal largely with practical action, they are without flaw in their moral tone, they are clear if not brilliant, and what they lack in picturesqueness they make up in faithful presentation; and last of all they are harmonious in their metrical composition.

Longfellow's other long poems are worthy of study and analysis. Of these the "Hiawatha" is an ideal picture. Critics condemn its form and pronounce its meter monotonous. The poem shows the fables, the dreams and the visions of a people who look at nature with the eyes of children. For us it is their interpretation of the forces of nature, whose poetical interpretation is the work of the childhood of every people, and to Longfellow is due the credit of speaking for a people which has no written record of itself. From this and other poems may be gleaned material to support the judgment in regard to the