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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882

Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on poetry

The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Introduction

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More from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.
The Ladder of St. Augustine, st. 10.
- Success
I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Their old, familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat. Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Christmas Bells, Stanza 1In context
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If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Drift-wood. QuoteInvestigator (Aug. 19, 2019)
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More about poetry

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Robert Frost1874–1963
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965“Philip Massinger”, a biographical essay, in The Sacred Wood (1920)
Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.
C. S. Lewis1898–1963Reflections on the Psalms

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