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Doth it not thrill thee, Poet,
Dead and dust though thy art,
To feel how I press thy singing
Close to my heart?

By Richard Le Gallienne
(The Passionate Reader to His Poet)

Mama had a purple leather book
Of  Henry Longfellow’s poetry.
She let me read it if I was careful,
And thus honed the love of poetry for me.

I memorized “The Village Blacksmith”
As well as “The Children’s Hour”.
Read “The Song of Hiawatha”
When chased in by a summer’s shower.

I never saw my mama reading it,
For she had to work no end,
But perhaps as with her daughter now,
It had once been her childhood friend.

Literary snobs sniped at Longfellow
As a writer for the masses,
As opposed I guess to the elite
Who penned for higher classes.

He was the most popular American poet
Of any poets of his time.
He could write in many different forms,
In lyric and in rhyme.

He was born in Maine in eighteen ought seven
He died in eighteen eighty two.
For all of his seventy five long years 
He knew what he wanted to do.

He was a student of languages
And a highly educated man.
As Harvard professor, earned eight hundred a year.
Just picture that now if you can.

He quit his prestigious position
To devote himself to his art.
An established poet by then
He was successful from the start.

He was receiving three thousand dollars a poem
By the year of Eighteen Hundred Seventy Four.
He’d  accumulated a sizable fortune
When he died in just seven years more.

Joyce Johnson 10/30/11  Won a no. 1

For Constance--My Dear Heart's contest The Passionate Reader!

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