RPO -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow : Aftermath

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Aftermath

1When the summer fields are mown,

2When the birds are fledged and flown,

3 And the dry leaves strew the path;

4With the falling of the snow,

5With the cawing of the crow,

6Once again the fields we mow

7 And gather in the aftermath.

8Not the sweet, new grass with flowers

9Is this harvesting of ours;

10 Not the upland clover bloom;

11But the rowen mixed with weeds,

12Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,

13Where the poppy drops its seeds

14 In the silence and the gloom.

Notes

1] "This poem, placed last in the book, gave title to the volume published in 1873, which contained the third part of Tales of a Wayside Inn and the third flight of Birds of Passage. The completion of the Tales on his sixty-sixth birthday may have given rise to this poem." (Editor, p. 81.)

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Bibliographical and Critical Notes, Riverside Edition (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), III, 81. PS 2250 E90 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1873
Publication date note: Aftermath (1873)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/1/24

Composition date: 1873
Rhyme: aabcccb

Other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow