Nature of Longfellow's poems

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poems mainly focus on the concept of the human cycle, our role in nature, and Death. In his poem Nature, he expresses death as a more blissful state. It is more positive and he uses the relationship between a mother and child as a metaphor to show our relationship with nature. Mother Nature nurtures us, takes care of us, and when the time comes, she strips away our earthly distractions to prepare us for the inevitable. The image of death in this poem is putting a cranky child to bed. We don’t want to go but there’s not much we can do. “Nature takes away our playthings one by one, and by the hand leads us to rest so gently.” It should be peaceful and happy, like going to bed after a long day of work to relive all the stress and pain from this world.

Longfellow also takes a different approach on death as he is reminiscing about his early life as a child and his curiosity. In his poem The tide rises, the tide falls, he creates more of a somber atmosphere in the first two lines. Darkness and sea are being used twice and personified. The symbolism and image that showed up in his previous poem A Psalm of Life, Footprints on the sands of time, reappears again in this poem, but in a more darker and sad tone. In his first poem, we need to make a footprint in the sands so we can be remembered forever and our life’s work isn’t in vain. In the poem The tide rises, the tide falls, the traveler is the man. Our footprints are washed away by the waves of the ocean which symbolizes that our impression will not be long lasting and we may be forgotten when we die. Man can never overcome Nature and its vast power. The traveler never returns and yet the waves still continues. Although the author doesn’t directly state death occurs, it is implied when the traveler didn’t return and he is forgotten.  Man dies, but the cycle of nature and life resumes even if you are not around to see it.