4

5

6

7

When next morn the sun's first rays
Glistened on the hemlock sprays,'
Straight that lodge the old chief sought,
And boiled samp° and moose° meat brought.

"Rise and eat, my son!" he said.
Lo, he found the poor boy dead.

As with grief his grave they made,
And his bow beside him laid,
Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid,
On the lodge-top overhead,
Preening smooth its breast of red
And the brown coat that it wore,
Sat a bird, unknown before.

And as if with human tongue,

"Mourn me not," it said, or sung;
"I, a bird, am still your son,
Happier than if hunter fleet,
Or a brave, before your feet
Laying scalps in battle won.
Friend of man, my song shall cheer
Lodge and corn-land; hovering near,
To each wigwam I shall bring
Tidings of the coming spring;
Every child my voice shall know
In the moon of melting snow,
When the maple's red bud swells,
And the wind-flower° lifts its bells.
As their fond companion

Men shall henceforth own your son,

And my song shall testify°

That of human kin° am I."

Thus the Indian legend° saith
How, at first, the robin came
With a sweeter life than death,
Bird for boy, and still the same.
If my young friends doubt that this
Is the robin's genesis,°

Not in vain is still the myth°

If a truth be found therewith:
Unto gentleness belong

Gifts unknown to pride and wrong;
Happier far than hate is praise,

He who sings than he who slays.

genesis (jěn' è sĭs), beginning

a belief

hemlock (hem' lõk), an evergreen | preen 6 (prēn), to dress with the beak samp 4 (sămp), hominy; Indian corn boiled, and eaten with milk

tree

kin 7 (kin), family

legends (lěj' end), a story that spray (sprā), small branches of comes down from the past

4

moose (moos), a deer with immense horns. (Picture, dictionary) myth 3 (mith), a story that explains

8

foliage

testify 7 (těs' ti fi), bear witness wind-flower,' the anemone, a pretty, pinkish spring flower

1. To whom was the poet telling this story? Where? 2. Why

3. Which was stronger 4. Find lines to show

was the test hard for the chief? For the boy? in the chief, love or haughty pride? Why? that the boy loved the woods. 5. What did the strange bird promise to do? 6. Explain “May's blown apple trees,' "nature's overstrain," "preening smooth," and "robin's genesis." 8

2

7. Read aloud the speeches that tell (a) the chief's ambition for his son, and (b) what the boy wanted to be and do. 8. Read aloud the dialogue in sections 2-3 and 5-7.

9. Is physical strength the only thing that makes manliness? IO. How can a boy of to-day show that he is manly? II. Contrast the horrors of war with the joys of peace. Which did the chief like better? Which did the son prefer?

12. Conversation and discussion: A day in a robin's life; How to make bird houses; How to attract robins to our backyards.

13. Make cut-outs of the Indian boy, the chief, and the robin. 14. Make a stage setting of the trial lodge and the hemlocks. (Manual.) 15. Make a play of three scenes out of the poem and act it for a Friday afternoon.

(Manual.)

Read silently in class, stopping at each italicized question for class discussion. Close your book after you have read the question and think out what you have to say about it.

1

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27, 1807. As you have read about the life of John Greenleaf Whittier on page 233, some of you may remember that the Quaker Poet was born in the same year. His birthday came on December 17, however, so he was ten months younger than Longfellow. Both of these poets were boys like you over a century ago. How would life in a village one hundred years ago differ from life to-day?

O

During Longfellow's boyhood men with cocked hats, wigs, and knee-breeches were still seen on the streets. There were few amusements except "spinning-bees" for the grown-up people and sleighing or sailing parties for the girls and boys. Houses had no stoves, for brick ovens and fireplaces were used. Candles furnished the light at night. Each house had a barn behind it, where a cow was kept, and every evening the boys went after the cows and drove them home through the streets from the hill at the end of the village where they were pastured during the day.

3 Portland, where Longfellow was born, was a bustling village in those days. There was a brisk lumber trade. A tannery and a pottery were also busy centers of work. People did not have the many newspapers then that they have now, but the "Portland Gazette" and the "Eastern Argus" came out once a week, and on the other days the town crier called out the bits of news as they came in from Boston. Portland was on the sea, so it had a good harbor, where ships came in to anchor after a fishing trip or a voyage to some foreign port. What would the Portland boys like to do?

4 When Longfellow was a boy, one of the busiest spots in Portland was the wharves and "slips" where the ships were. The sailors sang or shouted as they unloaded their cargoes. The Portland boys listened to the tales of the sea captains and longed to sail with the wind and see for themselves the new, strange lands described. Years later, thinking of this, the poet wrote:

5

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;

And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.

And the voice of that wayward song

Is singing and saying still:

A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

6 When young Longfellow's grandfather, General Wadsworth, moved from Portland out to the Saco River, where he had over 7000 acres of wilderness, the Longfellow family took the Wadsworth house on Congress Street for themselves. Henry loved to visit his grandfather, because there he could roam through the dense forest, and go gunning in the woods.

7 One hundred years ago it took two days to go by stage-coach from Boston to Brunswick, Maine, where Bowdoin College was located. The coach passed through Portland on its way, and one day in 1821, when it stopped at the inn, Master Henry Longfellow climbed up over the wheel with his carpet-bag in hand, on his way to college. He was a boy of fourteen. What things would a boy like Longfellow enjoy at college?

8 At Bowdoin College one of the professors described young Longfellow as "an attractive youth, with auburn locks, clear, fresh, blooming complexion, and, as might be expected, well-bred manners and bearing."

The boy was a good student and was graduated second in a class of thirty-seven. He took a great interest in college activities and developed his various talents. For instance, he was a member of the Peucinian Literary Society; he played the flute; he began to write poems in his Junior year. His teachers saw that he was especially good in languages and resolved to keep an eye on him, for they felt sure that he was meant for a noteworthy career. What might Longfellow like to

choose for his life-work?

10 When Mr. Longfellow talked with his son about his life-work, the young man asked to take up literature as a career, but his father, knowing that the profession of literature was not yet well established, urged his son to study law. This Henry tried to do, but he was not happy in his father's law-office.

11 In his first year out of college a little volume of poems written by six different poets was published. In it were some of Bryant's poems and fourteen by a young writer then unknown, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This shows that he still had the desire to write.

+Peucinian (pu sin′ i ăn).