The Fiftieth Birthday Of Agassiz. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)



It was fifty years ago
In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,
A child in its cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: 'Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee.'

'Come, wander with me,' she said,
'Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.'

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,
Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreams
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, 'Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn;
It is growing late and dark,
And my boy does not return!'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

58 sec read
103

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCB DEDE CCCC BFBF GHGH CACC ICIC JKJK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 970
Words 198
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. more…

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