The Poetical Works Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EARLIER POEMS " These poems were written for the most part during my college life, and all of them before the age of nineteen. Some have found their way into ... more »schools, and seem to be successful. Others lead a vagabond and precarious existence in the corners of newspapers ; or have changed their names and run away to seek their fortunes beyond the sea. I say, with the Bishop of Avranches on a similar occasion: ' I cannot be displeased to see these children of mine, which I have neglected, and almost exposed, brought from their wanderings in lanes and alleys, and safely lodged, in order to go forth into the world together in a more decorous garb.'" This note was prefixed by Mr. Longfellow to the following group of poems when published in Voices of the Night. The same collection was retained in subsequent editions with only slight textual variation. The forms given in the foot-notes are those of the edition of 1839. In the appendix will be found a fuller collection of poems of this class. '' The first five'' of the following, Mr. Longfellow says elsewhere in a manuscript note, " were written during my last year in college, in No. 27 Maine Hall, whose windows looked out upon the pine groves to which allusion is made in L'Envoi." These five poems were first published in the United States Literary Gazette, 1824-1825. AN APRIL DAY. When the warm sun, that brings Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, 'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain. I love the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms. From the earth's loosened mould The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives; Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold, The drooping...« less