"But now it has fallen from me, etc."
To the student of Longfellow, this poem speaks of the time he found it difficult to win the love of his second wife, Frances Appleton, love for whom he confessed in his novel Hyperion, where he drew her and himself. This story was published before she had as yet reciprocated his love. He married her July 13, 1843. He finished the poem October 9, 1845. At the end of this year he wrote in his diary that now he had love fulfilled and his soul was enriched with affection. He is therefore thinking of the time when he had no love and longed for it, and now that he has it, he is thinking of the love troubles of others. In the olden days he wanted to be carried away by the river Charles, for his long courtship, seemingly hopeless, made his heart hot and restless and his life full of care. So we see that in this poem the poet was thinking of something definite, relating to love (and hence also sex), though there is no mention of either in the poem.
It is well known that all love complaints are the cries of the Jack who cannot get his Jill; or who has lost the possibility of love happiness by desertion, deception or death.
Read that fine and pathetic Scotch ballad, beginning "O waly, waly up the bank." The girl (or woman) has been forsaken by her lover and expects to become a mother. She longs for death. She complains about the cruelty of love grown cold; she recalls the happy days. Her unconscious sentiment is that her lover will never give her spiritual happiness or satisfy her craving. Her life is empty. The poem was based on an actual occurrence. It contains all the despair of love that was once given and then withdrawn.
"O wherefore should I busk my head,
Or wherefore should I kame my hair?
"When we came in by Glasgow town
We were a comely sight to see;
My love was clad in the black velvet
And I myself in cramasie."