To bolster yourself against this age of anxiety, memorize robust poetry. Other poetry works as well.
Tag Archives: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Case for Memorizing Poetry
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Second Coming", "Soldier Rest", "Building of the Ship", "My Candle Burns at Both Ends", "Props assist the House", "Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth", Arthur Clough, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson, If, John Keats, Memorizing poetry, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, William Butler Yeats Comments closed
Stately Pines, Cathedral Towers
Many American poets have found God in nature, including Longfellow. His “Cathedral Towers” compares pine trees to a church.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Ode to a Nightingale", "Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church", "Cathedral Towers", Emily Dickinson, forests, God in nature, John Keats Comments closed
The Children’s Hour
Monday I am retooling a post that I wrote five years ago to apply to yesterday’s visit to my four grandchildren. As the three oldest, Esmé (7), Etta (5), and Eden (3), swarmed over me on their playroom floor, I recalled Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Children’s Hour.” It too features an elder man being swarmed […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Children's Hour", childhood innocence, grandchildren Comments closed
Love’s Wavering Image
Spiritual Sunday I share a lovely Longfellow poem about gazing into dark waters, featuring the hypnotic rhythm and rhyme that we associate with the poet. The speaker recalls a time in the past when he was depressed and wished the tide would carry him away. He no longer feels that way but imagines others experiencing […]
Personal News: A 2018 Retirement
In June 2018, after 38 years of teaching college, I will retire. I don’t want to go out like Walter Savage Landor’s old man–“the fire is low
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, retirement, teaching, Walter Savage Landor Comments closed
Tales of the Wayside Inn
A visit to the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts made me aware of Longfellow’s collection “Tales from the Wayside Inn.” Like Longfellow’s storytellers, I had a good time there.
Footprints on the Sands of Time
Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life” quotes from today’s Gospel reading–“let the dead bury their own dead”–in ways that help illuminate Jesus’s message.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Psalm of Life", Bible, Ecclesiastes, Luke, Psalms Comments closed
What Draws Kids to Eating Dramas
Eating stories enthrall my grandchildren because they reenact the childhood drama of separating from the parents and developing autonomous selves.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Children's Hour", child development, Children, Eric Carle, Helen Bannerman, Little Black Sambo, Very Hungry Caterpillar Comments closed
