Pleasant it was, when Woods were Green
Recalling woodland reveries filled with old legends, the speaker returns to the woods at Pentecost and feels childhood dreams revive. Voices that seem to speak insist that childhood cannot return and urge the speaker to draw poetry from the heart and life's sorrow and delight.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Metapoetry, Nature Poetry · 1,071 words
First lines
Pleasant it was, when woods were green, / And winds were soft and low, / To lie amid some sylvan scene. / Where, the long drooping boughs between, / Shadows dark and sunlight sheen / Alternate come and go;
Or where the denser grove receives / No sunlight from above, / But the dark foliage interweaves / In one unbroken roof of leaves, / Underneath whose sloping eaves / The shadows hardly move.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The first-person speaker expresses remembered woodland pleasures, renewed childhood dreams, and longing for those visions to remain.
- Metapoetry — The closing voices prescribe future subjects for the speaker's poetry, directing attention toward the heart, sorrow, and delight.
- Nature Poetry — Leaf sounds, shifting sunlight, spring buds, and an avenue of pines shape the speaker's woodland reveries.
Tags
woodlands · childhood memories · poetic inspiration · imagination · inner life · sorrow and delight
What this Textopian page supports
Pleasant it was, when Woods were Green 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: Lyric Poetry, Metapoetry, Nature Poetry
- Length: 1,071 words
- Structure: 1 section, 19 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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