The Poetical Works Of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ... BIRDS OF PASSAGE INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The Courtship of Miles Standish gave title to a volume, published in 1858, which contained in addition a number of separate poems grouped under the heading, Birds of Passage. It was introduced by the poem Prometheus and closed by Epimetheus. The title, which had been used before for a single poem, was conveniently comprehensive and appropriate, and when making the first collective edition of his works after this, Mr. Longfellow employed it to stand above his various shorter pieces after this date, arranging them according to their successive issues in book form, as Flight the First, which included the poems published in The Courtship of Miles Standish volume, and thus through Flight the Fifth. This arrangement is here followed with a slight change. The poem Birds of Passage, originally published in The Seaside and The Fireside, is made to lead the first Flight. Prometheus and Epimetheus, instead of heading and closing one section, are placed together, since in their original composition and in the author's intention they were complementary poems. In the present edition it has been found convenient to group in two volumes all of Mr. Longfellow's shorter poems. These poems fall naturally into two main divisions. The former includes the minor pieces produced between the years 1837 and 1850, that is, from the time when the poet established himself at Cambridge in his thirty-first year to the time when his mind was largely engrossed with the themes which demanded longer flights, like Evangeline, The Golden Legend, and The Song of Hiawatha. The poems of this division are brought together, with The Spanish Student, in the volume which forms the first of the series of Mr. Longfellow's poetical works in the present edition. The l...