Elegiac Verse by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The opening imagines an ancient bard learning elegiac meter from the sea, comparing hexameter and pentameter to advancing and retreating waves. Thirteen further pieces reflect on poetry in old age, rough rhymes, restraint in writing, religious analogies, childhood’s unsuspected future toil, inward youth, ambition, and passing time.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Epigram, Metapoetry, Reflective Poetry · 563 words
First lines
I
Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands, / Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves, / Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac, / Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.
Genres
- Epigram — Most sections compress an observation into two lines, including pointed remarks on writers knowing when to stop and poems spoiled by an extra verse.
- Metapoetry — Several sections address poetic meter, rhyme, the transformation of ordinary life through poetry, and the beginnings and endings of poems.
- Reflective Poetry — Brief comparisons consider a child’s unsuspected future labor, youth sought within oneself, and the strange appearance of things in old age.
Tags
poetic meter · writing · aging · childhood · passing time · religious analogies
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Elegiac Verse is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Epigram, Metapoetry, Reflective Poetry
- Length: 563 words
- Structure: 1 section, 29 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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