SOURCE: “Verse Narrative, Indian Saga, Idyl, Framework Tales, Drama, Translations,” in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Twayne Publishers, 1964, pp. 148-86.

In the following essay, Williams provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of Longfellow's major poetic works.

Come, read to me some poem           Some simple and heartfelt lay That shall soothe this restless feeling,           And banish the thoughts of day. 

And the night shall be filled with music,           And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,           And as silently steal away. 

—“The Day Is Done”

I Longfellow and the Major Types of Poetry

Longfellow, by the mid-1840's, had published several volumes of prose and verse. Among these were Hyperion, the prose romance loosely classifiable as a novel, and The Spanish Student, a verse drama which he had some hope might prove suitable for stage production. Both had considerable success, but the greater part of...