To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. Letter, March 13, 1877.)

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!?
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809-1882), U.S. poet. A Psalm of Life (l. 1-8). . . Norton Anthology of American Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Nina Baym and others, eds. (2d ed., 1985) W. W. Norton & Company.)

Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. The Rainy Day, st. 3, Ballads and Other Poems (1842).)

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1822), U.S. poet. There Was A little Girl, E.W. Longfellow, Random Memories (1922). Composed for his infant daughter, c. 1850.)

There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle,
Bedded softin moss and rushes,

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809-1882), U.S. poet. The Song of Hiawatha (l. 67-70). . . Family Book of Verse, The. Lewis Gannett, ed. (1961) Harper & Row.)

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809-1882), U.S. poet. The Song of Hiawatha (l. 57-60). . . Family Book of Verse, The. Lewis Gannett, ed. (1961) Harper & Row.)

Toiling,?rejoicing,?sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees its close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809-1882), U.S. poet. The Village Blacksmith (l. 37-42). . . Oxford Book of American Light Verse, The. William Harmon, ed. (1979) Oxford University Press.)

Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809-1882), U.S. poet. The Song of Hiawatha (l. 125-128). . . Family Book of Verse, The. Lewis Gannett, ed. (1961) Harper & Row.)

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809-1882), U.S. poet. Hymn to the Night (l. 1-4). . . Oxford Book of American Verse, The. F. O. Matthiessen, ed. (1950) Oxford University Press.)

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), U.S. poet. Holidays, Sonnets (1876).)