In The Harbour: Possibilities Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In The Harbour: Possibilities

Rating: 2.8


Where are the Poets, unto whom belong
The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent
Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,
But with the utmost tension of the thong?
Where are the stately argosies of song,
Whose rushing keels made music as they went
Sailing in search of some new continent,
With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
In schools, some graduate of the field or street,
Who shall become a master of the art,
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,
Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet
For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
MDINDY 19 June 2020

I came across this poem after reading an NYTimes review of a new book on Longfellow, which prompted me to reread some of his poems in an American poetry anthology that I have. This one struck me because it seems to prophecy Whitman, almost to a T. Anyone?

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