The Native Land by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The speaker addresses heaven as the soul's native country, where it no longer struggles for breath or fears death. Feeling exiled within the body, the speaker longs for heaven and takes comfort in the promise of dwelling where love aspires.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Sonnet, Religious Poetry · 196 words
First lines
(El Patrio Cielo)
By Francisco de Aldana
Clear fount of light! my native land on high, / Bright with a glory that shall never fade! / Mansion of truth! without a veil or shade, / Thy holy quiet meets the spirit's eye. / There dwells the soul in its ethereal essence, / Gasping no longer for life's feeble breath; / But, sentinelled in heaven, its glorious presence / With pitying eye beholds, yet fears not, death. / Beloved country! banished from thy shore, / A stranger in this prison-house of clay, / The exiled spirit weeps and sighs for thee! / Heavenward the bright perfections I adore / Direct, and the sure promise cheers the way, / That, whither love aspires, there shall my dwelling be.
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The Native Land is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Religious Poetry
- Length: 196 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Native Land by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
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Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines move from an address to heaven to the embodied spirit's longing and concluding assurance.
- Religious Poetry — The speaker imagines the soul's heavenly life beyond bodily breath and death, then finds comfort in a promise of belonging there.
Tags
heaven · soul · spiritual exile · mortality · sonnet