Romantic poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was born on this day in Portland, Maine, the son of a prominent Congressman. After college, he studied abroad and taught at Harvard University before devoting himself full-time to writing poetry.
He once said, "Fair words gladden so many a heart."
A storyteller and imagination weaver, his inspirational poems celebrated love, patriotism, and nature and included such classics as Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), and Paul Revere's Ride (1863).
A moral advocate of values, he said, "A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child."
Longfellow was a respected scholar and able translator with a passion for language and culture. As a lead member of the Fireside Poets, Longfellow was beloved by the readers of his time. His poetry was memorized and recited in classrooms and as family entertainment around the comfortable hearth.
"Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time," he wrote in Psalm of Life.
In his quest to spotlight the heroes of history, he wrote with romantic enthusiasm. Sentimental and conservative, his popularity extended abroad and he was the first American poet honored with a marble bust in England's Westminster Abbey.
"The morning pouring everywhere, its golden glory on the air," he said.
Have faith in the inevitable turning tide.