LONGFELLOW'S NEW POEM.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 399, 22 September 1875, Page 3

LONGFELLOW'S NEW POEM.

{From the New York Herald.] A new poem by Longfellow is always an important event in our literature, but his •' Morituri Salutamus," which we print today from the advance sheets of Harpers Magazine, derives unusual interest from the anniversary which it commemorates. Fifty years ago Mr Longfellow graduated with the famous cla?s of Bowdoin College, of which Nathaniel Hawthorne, Josiah S. Little, James W.Bradbury, John S. C. Abbott, Jonathan Cilley, George B. Cheever, Professor Nathaniel Dunn, and other distinguished men were members. Half a century is gone, and the great poet, who has survived many of his ancient college companions, is called upon to celebrate the memory of the past and the reunion of those who remain. It is not strange thac he should approach this task with reluctance, and that a solemn tone " from the deep throat of sad Melpomene" should underlie the silvery music of his verse. The idea of the poem is simple and noble. " 0, Crew, we who are about to die salute you !" is the cry of pain which echoes throughout the lines, softened into serenity by philosophic resignation. In their old

use, the poet and his friends returned, like Ulysses and his companions, from long wanderings to the scenes of early youth, salute the groves and halls of academic toil. They salute the shades of their dear preceptors, as Dante in the " Inferno" mot and bowed before the instructor of his youth. They who are about to die salute those who but begin to live—the graduates who go out into the world from the class of J 875. They salute each other, these long separated comrades, who meet once more only to separate again for ever. This conception is beautiful in its simplicity, and is presented with strength all the stronger for its tenderness and pathos. Poems such as this should not be judged with that severity which is given to those which are purely imaginative ; for they speak of those personal regrets and griefs to which reverence above all else is due. Nothing that Mr Longfellow has written for yearsoseemstousto have come more directly from his heart than this beautiful lament. There are passages in it which are unsurpassed in feeling by anything even in his own volumes, in which all passionate sorrows are transfigured into shapes of beauty. Yet in this poem the man sometimes interrupts the poet, as an actor, who is striving with his own grief, utters imperfectly the alien woe. of an imaginary character. Mr Longfellow sees himself " As one who struggles in a troubled dream To speak and cannot, to myself I seem." Upon such serious subjects as the closing of their own lives poets can neither speak freely nor yet be wholly silent, and it is the highest praise this poem could receive to say that in the pathetic strife between the man and the artist in <; Morituri Salutamus " the artist has won the supremacy. As " there is no beauty without a touch of sadness," so is the profound sadness of this poem suffused with beauty, as a dying face with love. The sincerity of its expression, chastened by patience and manly reserve, will endear this poem to the countless hearts who cherish Mr Longfellow as a guide in all that is noble and pure. It is more of a personal work than anything Mr Longfellow has written ; for generally he has chosen to stand apart from his art, like a painter behind his picture, expressing, in poetic forms, passions, and sorrows which appear to be his only as they are the property of all. But this majestic candour of the poet who has grown old in fame is very different from the morbid scorn with which Byron paraded his griefs before the common eye. It is the farewell of one to whom years have brought the. philosophic mind, and who, foreseeing the inevitable parting from earth, exclaims to all its imperial grandeurs, " 0 Cajsar, we who are about to die salute youl" It is a magnificent regret, but the close is inspired with a nobler faith, and Mr Longfellow has himself proved his philosophy by writing in his old age a poem which would have been impossible to him in youth. " And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is tilled with stars invisible by day."