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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Shakespeare


              1A vision as of crowded city streets,
              2    With human life in endless overflow;
              3    Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow
              4    To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats,
              5Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets;
              6    Tolling of bells in turrets, and below
              7    Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw
              8    O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets!
              9This vision comes to me when I unfold
            10    The volume of the Poet paramount,
            11    Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone; --
            12Into his hands they put the lyre of gold,
            13    And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount,
            14    Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.

Notes

14] Musagetes: leader of the muses, e.g., Apollo.

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, 200-01. PS 2250 E90 Robarts Library.
First publication date: 1875
Publication date note: In The Masque of Pandora
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 4:2002/4/6

Composition date: 1873
Form: Italian Sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacdecde

Other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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