Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) has appeared often in the Poem of the Day feature in The New York Sun. We’ve run little-known Longfellow and sentimental Longfellow, and Longfellow on the year’s occasions: Christmas, Winter, and Graduation Day. So why not another, for Halloween?Yet what Longfellow gives us is not strictly a Halloween poem. “Haunted Houses” is perhaps the clearest poem, certainly the best old American poem, that notices the crowding specters, the quiet dead, the gentle ghosts that surround us: “All houses wherein men have lived and died / Are haunted houses,” the poem begins, and Longfellow looks to see that what “has been” is “visible and clear.” The speaker of the poem lives in a far thicker world than others know: “There are more guests at table than the hosts / Invited.” In ten stanzas of pentameter quatrains, rhymed abab, the poem has an easy flow that hides the difficulty of its construction. The dead are with us, and those who look carefully discern that “The spirit-world around this world of sense / Floats like an atmosphere.”Haunted Housesby Henry Wadsworth LongfellowAll houses wherein men have lived and diedAre haunted houses. Through the open doorsThe harmless phantoms on their errands glide,With feet that make no sound upon the floors.We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,Along the passages they come and go,Impalpable impressions on the air,A sense of something moving to and fro.There are more guests at table than the hostsInvited; the illuminated hallIs thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,As silent as the pictures on the wall.The stranger at my fireside cannot seeThe forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;He but perceives what is; while unto meAll that has been is visible and clear.We have no title-deeds to house or lands;Owners and occupants of earlier datesFrom graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,And hold in mortmain still their old estates.The spirit-world around this world of senseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapours denseA vital breath of more ethereal air.Our little lives are kept in equipoiseBy opposite attractions and desires;The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,And the more noble instinct that aspires.These perturbations, this perpetual jarOf earthly wants and aspirations high,Come from the influence of an unseen starAn undiscovered planet in our sky.And as the moon from some dark gate of cloudThrows o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowdInto the realm of mystery and night, —So from the world of spirits there descendsA bridge of light, connecting it with this,O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.___________________________________________With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.
