About the Poet.
2. He was born on 27th February, 1807 and died on 24th March, 1882.
3. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841).
4. He was one among the Fireside Poets.
5. The Fireside Poets are also known as the School room poets or Household Poets. They were a group of 19th century American Poets.
6. The group Fireside Poets include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. The poems by these poets are very easy to memorize and for recitation, so the name was given Household poets.
7. Longfellow is the fiorst American to Translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy
8. He is related to American Romanticism.
9. He was an experimental poet in using different metrical forms and poetic forms.
10. In 1940 United States issued postal stamp with his image honoring him.
Notable Works of Longfellow are :
Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea: It is the Travelogue written in 1835.
Hyperion, a Romance (1839)
Kavanagh: A Tale (1849)
The Song of Hiawatha (epic poem) (1855)
The New England Tragedies (1868)
Christus: A Mystery (1872)
Aftermath (poem) (1873)
The Arrow and the Song (poem)
Poetry collections
Ballads and Other Poems (1841)
The Seaside and the Fireside (1850)
The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems (1858)
Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863)
Household Poems (1865)
Flower-de-Luce (1867)
Three Books of Song (1872)
Translations
Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique (Translation from Spanish) (1833)
Anthologies
Poets and Poetry of Europe (Translations) (1844)
The Waif (1845)[
Poems of Places (1874)
Daybreak
A wind came up out of the sea,
And said, "O mists, make room for me."
It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."
It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"
It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing."
And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near."
It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn."
It shouted through the belfry-tower,
"Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie."
And said, "O mists, make room for me."
It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."
It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"
It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing."
And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near."
It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn."
It shouted through the belfry-tower,
"Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie."
Synonyms and Antonyms :
1. Hailed : call, call to, call over, christen, launch ( Antonym : dumb, mute, silent, uninvited, undesirable, quite)
2. Mariners: sailors, seamen,
3. wood-bird : woodpecker?
4. chanticleer : a name for a cock, used especially in fables
5. clarion : A medieval trumpet with a shrill clear tone. The sound of this instrument or a sound resembling it., loud and clear.
6. Whisper : murmur, sigh, soft voice, low voice ( Antonyms : loud, noisy, shrill, deafening, raucous)
7. belfry-tower : A bell tower, especially one attached to a building. The part of a tower or steeple in which bells are hung.
8. proclaim : state publicly, announce, declare, pronounce, assert ( Antonyms : deny, disavow, repudiate)
9. Mist : fog, haze, vapor, smog, spray.
Appreciation of the poem ;
1. The Poem is taken from the poetic collection titled ‘Birds of Passage’ written in 1858.
2. It is a typical Household (or we can say Fireside poem) poem. The melodic nature is striking with rhyming couplets. (sea, me- on, gone- away, day- Shout, out etc.,)
3. Every couplet is complete with one thought or one occasion; it can be considered closed couplet as the new thought takes place with the starting of another couplet.
4. Wind is the harbinger of the new day.
5. Sea, land, forests, fields, village churchyard ; these are the places the wind touches and proclaims the new day.
6. An apt metaphor is used describing banner like leaves in the forest welcoming the day break.
7. wind is represented in stirring words like cried, hurried, touched, hailed.
8. speed of wind is felt in association of the words like hurry, cried, and whispered, sigh.
9. final couplet is in reverse mood when a sigh is expressed by the wind over the quite still nature of the churchyard.10. The words which starts with O! notates the stirring nature of the wind. Presence of the wind is felt every place as it is the harbinger of the day-break
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