Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


A SHADOW; SONNET by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Poet Analysis

First Line: I SAID UNTO MYSELF, IF I WERE DEAD, / WHAT WOULD BEFALL THESE CHILDREN?
Last Line: THEY WILL FIND HOPE AND STRENGTH AS WE HAVE DONE.

I said unto myself, if I were dead,
What would befall these children? What would be
Their fate, who now are looking up to me
For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
But the first chapters, and no longer see
To read the rest of their dear history,
So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
And generations pass, as they have passed,
A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
The world belongs to those who come the last,
They will find hope and strength as we have done.





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