The preface of "Outre-Mer," Longfellow's first book, is dated 1833. The
last poem in his last volume is published in 1863. In those thirty years
what wide renown, what literary achievement, what love of friends in
many lands, what abounding success and triumph, what profound sorrow,
mark the poet's career! The young scholar, returning from that European
tour which to the imaginative and educated American is the great
romance, sits down in Bowdoin College in Maine, where he is Professor,
and writes the "Epistle Dedicatory" to the "worthy and gentle reader."
Those two phrases tell the tale. The instinct of genius and literary
power stirring in the heart of the young man naturally takes the quaint,
dainty expression of an experience fed, thus far, only upon good old
books and his own imagination. The frolicking tone of mock humility,
deprecating the intrusion upon the time of a busy world, does not
conceal the conviction that the welcome so airily asked by the tyro will
at last be commanded by the master.
Like the "Sketch-Book" of the other most popular of our authors, Irving,
the "Outre-Mer" of Longfellow is a series of tales, reveries,
descriptions, reminiscences, and character-pieces, suggested by European
travel. But his beat lies in France, Spain, and Italy. It is the romance
of the Continent, and not that of England, which inspires him. It is the
ruddy light upon the vines and the scraps of old _chansons_ which
enliven and decorate his pilgrimage, and through all his literary life
they have not lost their fascination. While Irving sketches "Rural Life
in England," Longfellow paints "The Village of Auteuil"; Irving gives us
"The Boar's Head Tavern," and Longfellow "The Golden Lion Inn" at Rouen;
Irving draws "A Royal Poet," Longfellow discusses "The Trouvères," or
"The Devotional Poetry of Spain." It is delightful to trace the charming
resemblance between the books and the writers, widely different as they
are. There is the same geniality, the same tender pathos, the same
lambent humor, the same delicate observation of details, the same
overpowering instinct of literary art. But Geoffrey Crayon is a
humorist, while the Pilgrim beyond the Sea is a poet. The one looks at
the broad aspects of English life with the shrewd, twinkling eye of a
man of the world; the other haunts the valley of the Loire, the German
street, the Spanish inn, with the kindling fancy of the scholar and
poet. The moral and emotional elements are quite wanting in Irving; they
are characteristic of Longfellow. But the sweetness of soul, the freedom
from cynicism or stinging satire, which is most unusual in American, or
in any humorous or descriptive literature, is remarkable in both. "I
have no wife, nor children, good or bad, to provide for," begins
Geoffrey Crayon, quoting from old Burton. But neither had he an enemy
against whom to defend himself. It was true of Geoffrey Crayon, down to
the soft autumn day on which he died, leaving a people to mourn for him.
It is true of the Pilgrim of Outre-Mer, in all the thirty years since
first he launched forth "into the uncertain current of public favor."
In this earliest book of Longfellow's the notable points are not power
of invention, or vigorous creation, or profound thought, but a
mellowness of observation, instinctively selecting the picturesque and
characteristic details, a copious and rich scholarship, and that
indefinable grace of the imagination which announces genius. The work,
like the "Sketch-Book," was originally issued in parts, and it was
hardly possible for any observer thirty years ago not to see that its
peculiar character revealed a new strain in our literature. Longfellow's
poems as yet were very few, printed in literary journals, and not yet
signalizing his genius. It was the day when Percival Halleck, Sprague,
Dana, Willis, Bryant, were the undisputed lords of the American
Parnassus. But the school reading-books already contained "An April Day"
and "Woods in Winter," and all the verses of the young author had a
recognition in volumes of elegant extracts and commonplace-books. But
the universal popularity of Longfellow was not established until the
publication of "Hyperion" in 1839, followed by "The Voices of the Night"
in the next year. With these two works his name arose to the highest
popularity, both in America and England; and no living author has been
more perpetually reproduced in all forms and with every decoration.
If now we care to explain the eager and affectionate welcome which
always hails his writings, it is easy to see to what general quality
that greeting must be ascribed. As with Walter Scott, or Victor Hugo, or
Béranger, or Dickens, or Addison in the "Spectator," or Washington
Irving, it is a genial humanity. It is a quality, in all these
instances, independent of literary art and of genius, but which is made
known to others, and therefore becomes possible to be recognized, only
through literary forms. The creative imagination, the airy fancy, the
exquisite grace, harmony, and simplicity, the rhetorical brilliancy, the
incisive force, all the intellectual powers and charms of style with
which that feeling may be expressed, are informed and vitalized by the
sympathy itself. But whether a man who writes verses has
genius,--whether he be a poet according to arbitrary canons,--whether
some of his lines resemble the lines of other writers,--and whether he
be original, are questions which may be answered in every way of every
poet in history. Who is a poet but he whom the heart of man permanently
accepts as a singer of its own hopes, emotions, and thoughts? And what
is poetry but that song? If words have a uniform meaning, it is useless
to declare that Pope cannot be a poet, if Lord Byron is, or that Moore
is counterfeit, if Wordsworth be genuine. For the art of poetry is like
all other arts. The casket that Cellini worked is not less genuine and
excellent than the dome of Michel Angelo. Is nobody but Shakspeare a
poet? Is there no music but Beethoven's? Is there no mountain-peak but
Dhawalaghiri? no cataract but Niagara?
Thirty years ago almost every critic in England exploded with laughter
over the poetry of Tennyson. Yet his poetry has exactly the same
characteristics now that it had then; and Tennyson has gone up to his
place among English poets. It is not "Blackwood," nor any quarterly
review or monthly magazine, (except, of course, the "North American" and
the "Atlantic,") which can decree or deny fame. While the critics are
busily proving that an author is a plagiarist or a pretender, the world
is crowning him,--as the first ocean-steamer from England brought Dr.
Lardner's essay to prove that steamers could not cross the ocean.
Literary criticism, indeed, is a lost art, if it ever were an art. For
there are no permanent acknowledged canons of literary excellence; and
if there were any, there are none who can apply them. What critic shall
decide if the song of a new singer be poetry, or the bard himself a
poet? Consequently, modern criticism wisely contents itself with
pointing out errors of fact or of inference, or the difference between
the critic's and the author's philosophic or æsthetic view, and bitterly
assaults or foolishly praises him. When Horace Binney Wallace, one of
the most accomplished and subtile-minded of our writers, says of General
Morris that he is "a great poet," and that "he who can understand Mr.
Emerson may value Mr. Bancroft," we can feel only the more profoundly
persuaded that fame is not the judgment of individuals, but of the mass
of men, and that he whose song men love to hear is a poet.
But while the magnetism of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity
of his sympathy, which leads him neither to mysticism nor cynicism, and
which commends his poetry to the universal heart, his artistic sense is
so exquisite that each of his poems is a valuable literary study. In
this he has now reached a perfection quite unrivalled among living
poets, except sometimes by Tennyson. His literary career has been
contemporary with the sensational school, but he has been entirely
untainted by it, and in the present volume, "Tales of a Wayside Inn,"
his style has a tranquil lucidity which recalls Chaucer. The literary
style of an intellectually introverted age or author will always be
somewhat obscure, however gorgeous; but Longfellow's mind takes a
simple, child-like hold of life, and his style never betrays the
inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emotions that are but vaguely
perceived, which is the characteristic of the best sensational writing.
Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent contemporary masters which
is so ripe and racy as his. He does not make rhetoric stand for passion,
nor vagueness for profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a
voluntary and malicious "Bohemian" as to conceive that either in life or
letters a man is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he
used to be accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics who held
that Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance
was the royal prerogative of genius.
His literary scholarship, also, his delightful familiarity with the pure
literature of all languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the
learned poets. Yet he wears this various knowledge like a shining suit
of chain-mail, to adorn and strengthen his gait, like Milton, instead of
tripping and clumsily stumbling in it, as Ben Jonson sometimes did. He
whips out an exquisitely pointed allusion that flashes like a Damascus
rapier and strikes nimbly home, or he recounts some weird tradition, or
enriches his line with some gorgeous illustration from hidden stores, or
merely unrolls, as Milton loved to do, the vast perspective of romantic
association by recounting in measured order names which themselves make
music in the mind,--names not musical only, but fragrant:--
"Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest."
In the prelude to the "Wayside Inn," with how consummate a skill the
poet graces his modern line with the shadowy charm of ancient verse, by
the mere mention of the names!
"The chronicles of Charlemagne,
Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure,
Mingled together in his brain
With talcs of Flores and Blanchefleur,
Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,
Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain."
A most felicitous illustration of this trait is in "The Evening Star,"
an earlier poem. Chrysaor, in the old mythology, sprang from the blood
of Medusa, armed with a golden sword, and married Callirrhoë, one of the
Oceanides. The poet, looking at evening upon the sea, muses upon the
long-drawn, quivering reflection of the evening star, and sings. How the
verses oscillate like the swaying calm of the sea, while the image
inevitably floats into the scholar's imagination:--
"Just above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows fainter and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.
"Into the ocean faint and far
Falls the trail of its golden splendor,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.
"Chrysaor rising out of the sea
Showed tints glorious and thus emulous,
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoë,
Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.
"Thus o'er the ocean faint and far
Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly:
Is it a god, or is it a star,
That, entranced, I gaze on nightly?"
The blending of the poetical faculty and scholarly taste is seen, also,
in his translations; and would not a translation of Dante's great poem
be the crowning work of Longfellow's literary life?
But while we chat along the road, and pause to repeat these simple and
musical poems, each so elegant, so finished, as the monk finished his
ivory crucifix, or the lapidary his choicest gem, we have reached the
Wayside Inn. It is the title of Longfellow's new volume, "Tales of a
Wayside Inn." They are New-England "Canterbury Tales." Those of old
London town were told at the Tabard at Southwark; these at the Red Horse
in Sudbury town. And although it is but the form of the poem, peculiar
neither to Chaucer nor to Longfellow, which recalls the earlier work,
yet they have a further likeness in the sources of some of the tales,
and in the limpid blitheness of the style and the pure objectivity of
the poems.
The melodious, picturesque simplicity of the opening, in which the place
and the persons are introduced, is inexpressibly graceful and
masterly:--
"One autumn night in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine hanging from the eaves,
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.
As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality:
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled, and tall."
The autumn wind moans without, and dashes in gusts against the windows;
but there is a pleasant murmur from the parlor, with the music of a
violin. In this comfortable tavern-parlor, ruddy with the fire-light, a
rapt musician stands erect before the chimney and bends his ear to his
instrument,--
"And seemed to listen, till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought,"
--a figure and a picture, as he is afterward painted,--
"Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,
His figure tall and straight and lithe,"--
which recall the Norwegian magician, Ole Bull. He plays to the listening
group of friends. Of these there is the landlord,--a youth of quiet
ways, "a student of old books and days,"--a young Sicilian,--"a Spanish
Jew from Alieant,"--
"A theologian, from the school
Of Cambridge on the Charles,"--
then a poet, whose portrait, exquisitely sketched and meant for quite
another, will yet be prized by the reader, as the spectator prizes, in
the Uffizi at Florence, the portraits of the painters by themselves:--
"A poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and terse:
The inspiration, the delight,
The gleam, the glory, the swift flight
Of thoughts so sudden that they seem
The revelations of a dream,
All these were his: but with them came
No envy of another's fame;
He did not find his sleep less sweet
For music in some neighboring street,
Nor rustling hear in every breeze
The laurels of Miltiades.
Honor and blessings on his head
While living, good report when dead,
Who, not too eager for renown,
Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown."
The musician completes the group.
When he stops playing, they call upon the landlord for his tale, which
he, "although a bashful man," begins. It is "Paul Revere's Ride,"
already known to many readers as a ballad of the famous incident in the
Revolution which has, in American hearts, immortalized a name which this
war has but the more closely endeared to them. It is one of the most
stirring, ringing, and graphic ballads in the language,--a proper
pendant to Browning's "How they brought the good news from Ghent to
Aix."
The poet, listening with eager delight, seizes the sword of the
landlord's ancestor which was drawn at Concord fight, and tells him that
his grandfather was a grander shape than any old Sir William,
"Clinking about in foreign lands,
With iron gauntlets on his hands,
And on his head an iron pot."