On this day in 1882 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died, at the age of seventy-five. Longfellow was the most venerated and taught American poet of his day. His mythic tones, classical allusions and measured rhythms were a long way from Walt Whitman's "body electric" -- Whitman was just a dozen years his junior -- but they rang like Tennyson in the New World, and were extremely popular in both. This is from "Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College," written in Longfellow's last decade and delivered to his alma mater, as Ulysses to his boatmen ... FULL STORY »
