L'Envoi by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The speaker asks the voices that brought repose after evening to encourage those who doubt and fear, and the calm sounds likened to an angel's psalm to mingle again with the pine forest's roar. The speaker then addresses the tongues of the dead, comparing them to fiery tongues at Pentecost and asking them to glimmer like funeral lamps where Death encamps.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry · 160 words
First lines
Ye voices, that arose / After the Evening's close, / And whispered to my restless heart repose!
Go, breathe it in the ear / Of all who doubt and fear, / And say to them, "Be of good cheer!"
Ye sounds, so low and calm, / That in the groves of balm / Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!
Go, mingle yet once more / With the perpetual roar / Of the pine forest dark and hoar!
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Six rhyming tercets directly address voices and sounds that soothed the speaker's restless heart.
- Religious Poetry — The speaker compares calm sounds to an angel's psalm and the tongues of the dead to fiery tongues at Pentecost.
Tags
consolation · doubt and fear · voices of the dead · Pentecost · pine forest
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L'Envoi 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: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry
- Length: 160 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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