The Haunted Chamber
The speaker pictures the heart as a chamber haunted by memories, where a pale nocturnal form points toward a little child's grave beneath a pine. These recurring phantoms are compared to breathless statues on a bridge over the river of death.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Elegiac Poetry · 268 words
First lines
Each heart has its haunted chamber, / Where the silent moonlight falls! / On the floor are mysterious footsteps, / There are whispers along the walls!
And mine at times is haunted / By phantoms of the Past / As motionless as shadows / By the silent moonlight cast.
A form sits by the window, / That is not seen by day, / For as soon as the dawn approaches / It vanishes away.
It sits there in the moonlight / Itself as pale and still, / And points with its airy finger / Across the window-sill.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Eight rhymed quatrains present the speaker's troubled thoughts through a moonlit chamber and recurring phantoms.
- Elegiac Poetry — The remembered child's grave and the closing image of the river of death give the speaker's haunting a mournful focus.
Tags
memory · grief · child death · moonlight · haunting
What this Textopian page supports
The Haunted Chamber 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, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 268 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Haunted Chamber by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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