human
I do not think a 'Poets' Convention' would help the matter. In fact, the matter needs no helping.
gpt
The prospectus of a new magazine in Philadelphia to build up 'a national literature worthy of the country of Niagara--of the land of forests and eagles.'
human
The Arrow and the Song, for instance, came into his mind instantaneously; that
gpt
My Lost Youth occurred to him in the night, after a day of pain, and was written the next morning; that on December 17, 1839, he read of shipwrecks reported in the papers and of bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to a piece of the wreck, and that he wrote,
human
There is a reef called Norman's Woe where many of these took place; among others the schooner Hesperus. Also the Sea-Flower on Black Rock. I must write a ballad upon this; also two others,--'The Skeleton in Armor' and 'Sir Humphrey Gilbert.' A fortnight later he sat at twelve o'clock by his fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into his mind to write the Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus, which he says,
gpt
I accordingly did. Then I went to bed, but could not sleep. New thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the ballad. It was three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas. A few weeks before, taking up a volume of Scott's
human
Border Minstrelsy, he had received in a similar way the suggestion of
gpt
The Beleaguered City and of
human
The Luck of Edenhall.
gpt
He thought also that Bryant and Whittier hardly seemed happy in these belated revisions, and mentioned especially Bryant's
human
Water-Fowl,
gpt
As darkly limned upon the ethereal sky,
human
It is, however, rare to find a poet who can carry out this principle of abstinence, at least in his own verse, and we know too surely that Longfellow was no exception; thus we learn that he had made important alterations in the
gpt
Golden Legend within a few weeks of publication. These things show that his remark to Mr. Lawton does not tell quite the whole story. As with most poets, his alterations were not always improvements. Thus, in
human
The Wreck of the Hesperus,
gpt
Then up and spoke an old sailór Had sailed the Spanish Main,
human
Sailed to the Spanish Main,