The mission of The Library of America is to rescue American literature from oblivion. This task was undertaken in 1979 when some scholars and critics observed that many fine literary works were out of print, and few copies could be found. Concerned that the loss of important literary texts would deprive Americans of a vital part of their heritage, the founders of The Library determined to rectify the situation. With seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, The Library was formed, and the first volumes appeared in 1982.
The Library publishes volumes twice each year, and for the year 2000 one of their publications was Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings, edited by poet J. D. McClatchy. The black dust-cover volume is a handsome book with a ribbon bookmark and a whopping 854 pages, including a chronology of the poet's life, notes on the texts, notes, and an index of titles and first lines.
McClatchy has selected a wide variety of the poet's works, such as poems from The Voices of the Night, Ballads and Other Poems, and Poems on Slavery,. Evangeline and The Song of Hiawatha are offered in their entirety.
As the dust cover description informs us, Longfellow's poetry was enormously popular and influential in his own lifetime. Today, most of us have heard his quotations so often they have become "part of the culture." One of my favorite Longfellow poems is "A Psalm of Life" that contains the following stanza:
Life is real! Life is earnest!You, of course, recognize the line, "Into each life some rain must fall." You will find that line in his poem called "The Rainy Day." No doubt it is this Longfellow poem that helped spread the use of "rain" as a metaphor for the melancholy times in our lives.
And the grave is not its goal:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Longfellow was a careful scholar, and his poems reflect an intuition that allowed him to see into the heart and soul of his subject. His "The Slave's Dream" reveals his knowledge of Africa, as well as the aspirations of a dying slave. After illuminating the slave's dream of being king in his Native Land, the speaker of the poem reveals the slave's soul has departed its body:
He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
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