Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Optimism in Poetry Essay

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

In his poem “The Tide Rises The Tide Falls”, we can see the use of personification as nature comforts a traveler facing death. The seashores are busy throughout the day and night. Many people stroll by including a traveler moving in haste. In a place crowded by modern society the tides continues to rise and falls even when it is filled with darkness, leading up to the traveler’s death. With many different kind of people that passes by the nature of the waves Longfellow writes, “The little waves, with their soft white hands,/ Efface the footprints in the sands,/ And the tide rises, and the tide falls” (Longfellow lines 7-10). In this we can see the use of personification as he says that the waves have soft white hands. This shows a gentle and soothing effect in which nature has to clear the footprints off the sands with their hands. Death is inevitable as shown in a relatable cycle with nature where the tide rises and falls, giving a comfort to individual to understand that death is just a process. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poetry reflects his ideal on nature and its comforting

     The meaning of the first stanza is do the things you need to get done because tomorrow the opportunity may not exist. It states this by saying gather rosebuds while you can because that beautiful flower “tomorrow will be dying” (Herrick 385). The next stanza talks about the Sun’s life from dawn to dusk. By describing it’s race against time it is telling a person that there is not much sunlight so make the most of it To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time and Carpe Diem

While both Keats and Longfellow often reflect on their own unfulfilled dreams and impending deaths, the poems however contrast on their own dispositions towards death and the future. Here, Keats expresses a fear of not having enough time to accomplish all that he believes he is capable of doing, but as he recognizes the enormity of the world and his own limitations of life, he realizes that his own mortal goals are meaningless in the long run of things. On the other hand, Longfellow speaks of a regret towards his inaction for allowing time to slip away from him in his past and is at a crossroads for the ominous future that looms ahead of him. Through the use of light and dark imagery, and personification, Keats and Longfellow similarly yet also differently, reflect on their own ideas for death and the futures that lay ahead of them.

Another thing the two sonnets share is metaphorical language; it used to imply a comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common ground. Christina Rossetti establishes an idea of metaphorically remaining “alive” through remembrance. The juxtaposition in line 1, “Remember me” and “gone away” implies that the poet suggests that the memory is the last thing a person has that still ties them to life. Henry Longfellow utilizes metaphorical language when he compares a tangible object to emotions. He includes, “There is a mountain…/that…/displays a cross of snow upon its side. / Such is the cross I wear upon my breast” (lines 9-12). The image of a mountain that bears a cross shape filled with snow manifests an image of the angelic figure going towards heaven. Longfellow purposely used a mountain to further implicate religious ideas; the height of the mountain shows that is closer to heaven because it is going upward. The snow symbolizes the wife and that she is on the peak of the mountain, reaching towards heaven. He wears the pain of the loss of his wife on his chest because she is within his soul.

Geoff Goodfellow is a famous Australian poet named the peoples poet who has had a hard and eventful life. His biggest battle to date is his recent battle with cancer. He got told that his life was about to come to an end in the next five years but what he had got taught from growing up in the northern streets of Adelaide was to never back down from a fight and this was going to be his biggest battle to date.

Prompt: In a brief essay, identify at least two of the implications implicit in the society reflected in the poem. Support your statements by specific references to the poem.

The speaker believes that love is hard to come by and that he is sad that he may not encounter it, since death is just around the corner. The speaker then also talks of “unreflecting love,” thus depicting that the speaker has never experienced real love and is unlikely to ever experience it, because he is so worried about death’s fast approach. However, at the end of “When I have Fears,” the speaker reflects that his goals for literary prowess and love are “nothingness” in comparison to the grand scope of things. There is hope after death, and Keats’ narrator finds solace in this. Although he has not achieved everything he had wanted, the speaker is still appreciative of what he was able to do. On the other hand, Longfellow’s speaker in “Mezzo Cammin” takes on a much more sorrowful and negative tone. Using diction of “half of my life,” “years slip,” and “not fulfilled,” Longellow shows that the speaker is really dreading and mourning his day to go. It seems that the speaker’s fear of death completely and irresolutely hinders him from accomplishing any of his goals. He is too busy being pessimistic about his life that he is unable to live in the present. He is also unable to dream into the future. Unlike Keats’ speaker, Longfellow’s speaker is completely stunted in from any possible growth. He is too stuck in the Past and its images of “smoking roof, soft bells, and gleaming lights.” This hazy

The two poems correspond to one another through similar themes and details covered. Both the writers deal with the regrets that they will have in their lives with a negative tone. Their aspiration to continue to write is experienced by them both although by Keats in a higher amount. Keats expresses this through lines 1-12 of his poem and Longfellow by his goal “to build/Some tower of song with lofty parapet” (2-3), because he too is a writer. The two poem’s structure included a rhyming scheme in order to point out important phrases and lines in the poems, such as the ending couplet in Keats’ poem.

Stanza two in "God 's-Acre" insinuates how sacred the name "God 's Acre" is and how the deceased are comfortable in their graves knowing that they are going toward heaven. In "Blind Bartimeus", Longfellow inserts religion throughout the whole poem. For example line four " 'It is Christ of Nazareth! '" exclaims the coming of Christ. This poem tells the tale of Christ curing the blind. Longfellow shows his faith through this poem telling about a common bible story. Longfellow 's recoil from several aspects of the contemporary religious scheme cause him to lose much of his professional hope for the future.

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

Robert Frost takes our imagination to a journey through wintertime with 
his two poems "Desert Places" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". These two poems reflect the beautiful scenery that is present in the snow covered woods and awakens us to new feelings. Even though these poems both have winter settings they contain very different tones. One has a feeling of depressing loneliness and the other a feeling of welcome solitude. They show how the same setting can have totally different impacts on a person depending on 
their mindset at the time. These poems are both made up of simple stanzas and diction but they are not straightforward poems.

The author then, ends the poem with the phrase, “And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. / Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, / you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”(35-37). The author cleverly hints that the value of a journey is not determined by the physical treasures you will encounter, but by the wisdom and insight you will have gained by taking that journey. The quotation allows for readers to grasp the idea that the destination inspires the voyage, but without the voyage, nothing will change. You cannot learn from arriving at your target. The path you take, whether it be safe or life-taking, it’s better to know you attempted and failed than not knowing what could’ve

The third stanza is addressed to ‘good men’ who regret their choices in life and think of how much they could have achieved, if they had only had lived longer. Poetic techniques used in this stanza are personification, symbolism, repetition and rhyme. In the second line, we see the use of personification when Thomas writes of how “their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”, referring to the ‘good men’. This line paints a picture of how the frail

Again, the author selects a new set of imagery, such as stars, moon, sun, ocean, and wood to remind of the heaven in which the speaker used to live, and then to sweep it off right away. The last statement “For nothing now can ever come to any good” (16) finally reinforces the speaker’s loss and unhappiness. In loneliness, the speaker’s love becomes fiercer and more truthful. It is the fierceness and truthfulness that lead the speaker to the last stair of hopelessness. The end of the poem is also the hopeless end of the speaker’s life because of “nothing …good.”