The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz
For Agassiz’s fiftieth birthday, the speaker imagines Nature as a nurse who guides him from his cradle in the Pays de Vaud into reading the world as God’s manuscripts. The closing verses describe his dreams of mountain streams and familiar songs, and depict his mother listening for his return.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Celebratory Poetry, Allegorical Poetry · 315 words
First lines
May 28, 1857
It was fifty years ago / In the pleasant month of May, / In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, / A child in its cradle lay.
Genres
- Celebratory Poetry — The fiftieth-birthday verses commemorate a life spent learning from Nature.
- Allegorical Poetry — Nature speaks and acts as a nurse, guiding the child through a world represented as God’s manuscripts.
Tags
birthdays · personification · nature · homesickness · motherhood
What this Textopian page supports
The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz 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: Celebratory Poetry, Allegorical Poetry
- Length: 315 words
- Structure: 1 section, 9 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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