Born 204 years ago today, the rock-star poet of 19th-century America, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There is no mention, in Hershel Parker's biography of Melville, of Herman ever having met Henry. However, Mr. Parker reports that Longfellow and his second wife, Fanny, read Omoo aloud together. In a letter to her father, Fanny wrote, "...[we read] through Omoo which is very inferior to Typee..."
Longfellow died in 1882, so he certainly could have read M-D.
(If you're ever in Cambridge, MA, a tour of the Longfellow House, led by a well-informed National Park Service guide, is very worthwhile.)
It was of another form, indeed;
ReplyDeleteBuilt for freight, and yet for speed,
A beautiful and gallant craft;
Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast,
Pressing down upon sail and mast,
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm;
Broad in the beam, but sloping aft
With graceful curve and slow degrees,
That she might be docile to the helm,
And that the currents of parted seas,
Closing behind, with mighty force,
Might aid and not impede her course.