Mezzo Cammin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Halfway through life, the speaker attributes an unfulfilled youthful ambition to write poetry to sorrow and consuming care, yet believes achievement remains possible. The speaker pictures the past as a twilight city below and death as a cataract thundering from the heights above.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Sonnet, Meditative Poetry · 173 words
First lines
Half of my life is gone, and I have let / The years slip from me and have not fulfilled / The aspiration of my youth, to build / Some tower of song with lofty parapet. / Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret / Of restless passions chat would not be stilled, / But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, / Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; / Though, half way up the hill, I see the Past / Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, -- / A city in the twilight dim and vast, / With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights. -- / And hear above me on the autumnal blast / The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
What this Textopian page supports
Mezzo Cammin 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: Sonnet, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 173 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Mezzo Cammin by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines turn from the speaker's delayed poetic ambition to contrasting visions of the past below and death above.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers why youthful aspirations remain unfulfilled and what may still be accomplished as death threatens.
Tags
midlife · poetic ambition · lost time · sorrow · mortality · sonnet