Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1886 — Longfellow’s First Poem. [ARTICLE]

Longfellow’s First Poem.

He was thirteen years old when, after hearing a story about an Indian tight years before at Lovell’s Pond, there appeared in the Portland Gazette a poem on that event. The last verse will answer as a specimen: They died in their glory, surrounded by fame, And victory's loud trump theirdeath did proclaim. They are dead, but they live in each patriot's breast, And their names are engraven 011 honor's bright —— '■ crest. »■;■■■. —- Other boys of thirteen have written better verses, and their “only interest lies in their being the first of his printed.” With a trembling and misgiving heart he had dropped them into the printing office letter-box.’ On the evening of the publication of the paper he stood shivering in the November air, ca||ing many a glance at the windows as they trembled with the jar of the ink-balls and the-press, but afraid to venture in. His sister, who had been let into the secret, shared the impatience with which next morning he watched his father slowly unfolding the damp sheet and holding it before the wood fire, and then reading the paper, but, if he saw the verses signed “Hensaying nothing of them. At last tiiey got hold of it. To tho boy’s inexpressible delight the poem was there, and lie read and reread it with immense satisfaction. In the evening he went with his father toh neighbors, and the talk turned upon poetry. “Did yon see the piece in the paper to-day?” asked the neighbor. “Very stiff; remarkably stiff. Moreover, it is all borrowed", every word of it.” The hoy would gladly have sunk through the floor, and his pillow was w’et with his tears that night. It was his first encounter with the “critic;” but it did not discourage him. From time to time other pieces appeared in the Gazette, and he wrote a carriers ! New Year’s address; hut “they are not worth reprinting. ” Although he himself won a wider fame than Bryant, his early efforts were not as successful, Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” being regarded as unexcelled by few, if any, of his later poems. Prof. Langlev’s researches have led him to conclusions which imply that, in the absence of absorbing atmosphere, the earth would receive sufficient heat from the snn to melt an ice-shell about 180 feet deep over the globe’s entire surface. Recent German researches show that the purification of natural waters is effected almost wholly by plant and animal agencies, the chemieal action Of ozone, peroxide of hydrogen, and atmospheric oxygen exerting but a feeble influence.