The Angel and the Child
An angel bends over a cradle and urges the child to escape earthly pain and fear with him, asking that the child's last hour be welcomed without mourning. The angel flies toward eternal light, and the narrator tells the mother that her son is dead.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Religious Poetry · 384 words
First lines
By Jean Reboul, the Baker of Nismes
An angel with a radiant face, / Above a cradle bent to look, / Seemed his own image there to trace, / As in the waters of a brook.
Genres
- Narrative Poetry — Rhymed quatrains recount an angel's visit to a cradle, his speech to the child, and his departure before the revelation of the child's death.
- Religious Poetry — The angel invokes Providence and presents death as escape from earthly suffering toward eternal light.
Tags
angels · infant death · cradle · afterlife · mourning
What this Textopian page supports
The Angel and the Child 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: Narrative Poetry, Religious Poetry
- Length: 384 words
- Structure: 1 section, 10 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Angel and the Child by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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