"Longfellow's sentimentality"

1. “Longfellow’s Sentimentality” Christoph Irmscher

4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1809-1882

9. Waldo Emerson, 1836-1842

11. There is a mountain in the distant West That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is the cross I wear upon my breast These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes, And seasons, changeless since the day she died. Longfellow, “The Cross of Snow”

12. Longfellow to A. E. Warren, 6 May 1853 I would inform you that the poem of ‘Resignation’ was written but a few days after the event which occasioned it, and expresses the state of feeling I was in at the time. This feeling I have never very clearly analyzed; but I remember very well, that the words ‘There is no Death!’ arose in my mind as a cry, or protest, or if you will a triumphant assertion of immortality. Hoping that this interpretation of the line may coincide with your own, and thanking you and your friends for the interest you have taken in the poem, I remain, yours Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

16. Phoebe Cary (1824-1871)

19. Fanny Fales, “Yes, As A Child” (1858) O say not so! How shall I know my darling, If changed her form, and veil’d with shining hair? If, since her flight, has grown my little starling. How shall I know her there? On memory’s page, by viewless fingers painted, I see the features of my angel-child; She passed away, ere sin her soul had tainted— Passed to the undefiled.

22. Edited by Nicholas Irmscher