Shakespeare by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Opening Shakespeare’s volume, the speaker envisions crowded streets, battle trumpets, sailors, bells, children, and garden flowers. The closing lines imagine the Muses giving the poet a golden lyre, crowning him with laurel, and placing him on their throne.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Sonnet, Literary Tribute · 155 words
First lines
A vision as of crowded city streets, / With human life in endless overflow; / Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow / To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats, / Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets; / Tolling of bells in turrets, and below / Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw / O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets! / This vision comes to me when I unfold / The volume of the Poet paramount, / Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone; -- / Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, / And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount, / Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines move from an eight-line city vision to six lines identifying its occasion and portraying the poet among the Muses.
- Literary Tribute — The speaker associates reading the poet with a crowded vision of human life and imagines the Muses giving him a golden lyre, crowning him with laurel, and placing him on their throne.
Tags
sonnet · city life · reading · literary tribute · Muses
What this Textopian page supports
Shakespeare 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, Literary Tribute
- Length: 155 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Shakespeare by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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