The City and the Sea
A personified city, faint with heat, asks the sea to breathe on it. The sea warns that its breath may bring life or death; an east wind arrives, and the closing question leaves its effect unresolved.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Personification · 135 words
First lines
The panting City cried to the Sea, / "I am faint with heat, -- O breathe on me!"
And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath / To some will be life, to others death!"
As to Prometheus, bringing ease / In pain, come the Oceanides,
So to the City, hot with the flame / Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Six rhyming couplets frame the city's appeal for relief and end with a question about the arriving wind.
- Personification — The city cries out from the heat, and the sea answers with a warning about its breath.
Tags
sea · east wind · urban heat · personification
What this Textopian page supports
The City and the Sea 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, Personification
- Length: 135 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
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- Work identity for The City and the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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