Burial of the Minnisink
A funeral procession carries a young chief through a forest at sunset and buries him with his weapons. His riderless battle horse is killed with an arrow beside the grave, and the closing image reunites horse and rider in death.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Elegiac Poetry · 497 words
First lines
On sunny slope and beechen swell, / The shadowed light of evening fell; / And, where the maple's leaf was brown, / With soft and silent lapse came down, / The glory, that the wood receives, / At sunset, in its golden leaves.
Far upward in the mellow light / Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white, / Around a far uplifted cone, / In the warm blush of evening shone; / An image of the silver lakes, / By which the Indian's soul awakes.
Genres
- Narrative Poetry — Rhyming stanzas follow a funeral procession, the chief's burial, and the killing of his horse beside the grave.
- Elegiac Poetry — A funeral hymn, a death dirge, and grieving mourners accompany the burial of a chief who died before thirty.
Tags
funeral rites · mourning · warriors · horse sacrifice · narrative poetry
What this Textopian page supports
Burial of the Minnisink is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Narrative Poetry, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 497 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Burial of the Minnisink by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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