“TBartel” over at Evangelical Outpost writes about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, meditating on the whole modern problem of “what is poetry?” (A question that would never have occurred to our ancestors.)

Rhyming couplets, simple diction, and a heart-warming ending: it is for these qualities that Longfellow is lately maligned. Yet it is for these same qualities that Longfellow was once loved. In the mid-19th century, Eliot’s and Pound’s modernism had not yet marginalized formal, accessible poetry, and the American public had no conception, as our century does, that well made poetry must be obscure and difficult. Thousands bought and loved Longfellow’s lyrical, accessible poetry, so much so that halfway through his 50 year career, he was able to retire from teaching to live off money from book sales. Hiawatha was the bestselling book of poetry of the 19th century, not only in America, but in Europe as well.

To the list of TBartel’s recommendations, I would add Tales of a Wayside Inn. It includes Longfellow’s retelling of the saga of Olaf Trygvesson. This was actually my own first introduction to the saga material.

I’m not sure what all Czeslaw Milosz is thinking about in his poem, “A Song On the End of the World,” but the closing seems to speak to those who could take up a higher call, but do not because they are too busy.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

No other end of the world will there be,

No other end of the world will there be.

No other end of the world will we anticipate, because we have today’s simple worries to occupy us. No high calling is on us than to clothe and feed ourselves. Some of us could be prophets, teachers, leaders, or encouragers, but we aren’t because we’re too busy or maybe too distracted. Maybe we’re blogging too much.

I suppose the first step out of this is prayer.

Three female poets in “the first century of world wars”

On observing birds by Billy Collins

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary;

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;

It rains . . . continued

I.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,

Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

And do run still, though still I do deplore?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

II.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won

Others to sin, and made my sin their door?

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun

A year or two, but wallowed in a score?

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,

For I have more.

III.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;

But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son

Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;

And having done that, Thou hast done ;

I fear no more.

“A Hymn to God the Father,” by John Donne