The Golden Mile-Stone
In a winter village, firesides gather old men mourning the past, youthful dreamers, troubled couples and families awaiting a familiar footstep. Each man's chimney becomes the point from which he measures the world, and the speaker insists that splendid houses cannot replace the old home's associations.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Meditative Poetry · 445 words
First lines
Leafless are the trees; their purple branches / Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral, / Rising silent / In the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.
From the hundred chimneys of the village, / Like the Afreet in the Arabian story, / Smoky columns / Tower aloft into the air of amber.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Short, patterned stanzas move from a winter village scene to reflections on the emotional attachments of home.
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker considers disappointed hopes, remembered companions and the inability of wealth to replace a home's associations.
Tags
firesides · ancestral homes · memory · domestic life · winter · wandering
What this Textopian page supports
The Golden Mile-Stone 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, Meditative Poetry
- Length: 445 words
- Structure: 1 section, 12 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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