I managed to miss the two hundredth birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882). A poet who is perhaps best known for his poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” it also happens that Longfellow was a Unitarian. If you go up to visit First Parish in Portland, Maine, they will show you the pew which he and his family rented.

Longfellow’s reputation has fallen on hard times. Today, the critics dismiss his poetry as too sentimental. And the historians rightly point out the gross inaccuracies in his poems;– when I was a licensed tourist guide in Concord, Massachusetts, I had to constantly explain to people that despite what Longfellow wrote in “Paul Rever’s Ride,” Revere never made it to Concord because His Majesty’s Regulars captured him in the town of Lincoln.

Nevertheless, Longfellow’s straightforward language and imagery helped create the political mythos of the United States. I still get chills as I read the last lines of “Paul Revere’s Ride”:

In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,–
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;–
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,–
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

…although, in the context of the current political and military adventures of the United States, it is worth noting that Longfellow was a pacifist.

So happy 200th, Henry. Sorry I missed the actual date. But according to the Web site of the Longfellow Bicentennial, I’ll have plenty of other opportunities to celebrate — including an “evening conversation” at 6:30 tonight, at the Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge.

Sunday school teachers can find activity kits here: Link (scroll down and follow the link labeled “Activity Kits,” which brings up a pop-up window).

Works by Longfellow at Project Gutenberg: Link.