So the young graduate traveled in Europe to gain a speaking knowledge of all the languages he would have to teach. At the age of twenty-two, he became a professor at Bowdoin.
After five years at his own college, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was chosen Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard. He spent the first year in Europe. The next year he began his work as a Harvard professor. He boarded at the Craigie mansion, which had been General Washington’s headquarters during the first year of the War for Independence, sixty years before. Indeed, he slept in the same room occupied by the Father of his Country as a bedroom.
Although he had published several books of poetry, Longfellow’s poems did not begin to be popular till “A Psalm of Life” was published, in his thirty-third year. This poem made many people talk about him. Ministers preached about it, and the lines were set to music. Here is one stanza of this famous poem:
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints in the sands of time.”
Then such short poems as “Excelsior,” “The Village Blacksmith,” “The Rainy Day,” “The Arrow and the Song,” “The Day Is Done,” and many others, were recited in schools and sung in thousands of homes.
Of Longfellow’s longer poems, “Evangeline” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish” are, perhaps, the most popular. It is said that more people know of the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth through the latter poem than by reading the history of the country. It is a story of the lovely Priscilla and her true lover, John Alden, who came to ask her to marry Miles Standish. That little captain was brave enough to fight with savages, but he shrank from the bright eyes of Priscilla Mullens. John Alden was a true soldier and delivered his captain’s message, but Priscilla, knowing his loyal heart, only smiled at him and asked: “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” And one of the great-great-great-grandsons of John Alden and his lovely wife, Priscilla, was the poet Longfellow!
“Hiawatha,” the poem about the Indian tribes, is also a great favorite, especially with the children. This is because of its descriptions of Indian customs and legends. It is the life history of the Indian boy, Hiawatha, from the time when he was a funny little papoose till he had grown to sturdy manhood.
When the little Indian boy was old enough he was sent out on a lone hunt through the wilderness to fit himself to become a true Indian brave. Here is what he did and saw and heard at that time:
“Forth into the forest straightway
All alone walked Hiawatha
Proudly, with his bow and arrows;
And the birds sang round him, o’er him:
‘Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!’
Sang the robin, the Opeechee,
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa,
‘Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!’
“Up the oak-tree close behind him,
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
In and out among the branches,
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree,
Laughed, and said between his laughing,
‘Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!’ ”