Longfellow's Christus, a Mystery, was the title finally given by him to three apparently separate poems, published under the titles, The Golden Legend (1851), The Divine Tragedy (1871), and The New England Tragedies (1868). His idea was to represent the origin, the medieval aspect, and the Puritan conception of Christianity—a task not well suited to Longfellow's genius. The Golden Legend is the most poetic, but The New England Tragedies is the most likely to be read in future years, not for its poetic charms, but because it presents two phases of New England's colonial history, the persecution of the Quakers and the Salem witchcraft delusion.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.—An eminent Scotch educator says that Longfellow has probably taught more people to love poetry than any other nineteenth-century poet, English or American. He is America's best and most widely read story-teller in verse. Success in long narrative poems is rare in any literature. Probably the majority of critics would find it difficult to agree on any English poet since Chaucer who has surpassed Longfellow in this field.
He has achieved the unusual distinction of making the commonplace attractive and beautiful. He is the poet of the home, of the common people, and of those common objects in nature which in his verses convey a lesson to all. He has proved a moral stimulus to his age and he has further helped to make the world kindlier and its troubles more easily borne. This was his message:—
"Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth."
His poetry is usually more tinctured with feeling than with thought. Diffuseness is his greatest fault. The Sonnets of his later years and an occasional poem, like Morituri Salutamus (1875), show more condensation, but parts of even Hiawatha would be much improved if told in fewer words.
Some complain that Longfellow finds in books too much of the source of his inspiration; that, although he did not live far from Evangeline's country, he never visited it, and that others had to tell him to substitute pines or hemlocks for chestnut trees. Many critics have found fault with his poetry because it does not offer "sufficient obstruction to the stream of thought,"—because it does not make the mind use its full powers in wrestling with the meaning. It is a mistake, however, to underestimate the virtues of clearness and simplicity. Many great men who have been unsuccessful in their struggle to secure these qualities have consequently failed to reach the ear of the world with a message. While other poets should be read for mental development, the large heart of the world still finds a place for Longfellow, who has voiced its hopes that
"… 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."
Like most Puritans, Longfellow is usually over-anxious to teach a lesson; but the world must learn, and no one has surpassed him as a poetic teacher of the masses.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 1807-1892
[Illustration: JOHN G. WHITTIER]