" as he says, "into a kind of rhythmic charm in
which the voice seemed floating up and down on wings." It has been
thought that he transferred in some degree the personality of this
worthy woman to the heroine of his story, their Christian names being
the same; but he afterwards resumed the original title, "The Courtship
of Miles Standish." He wrote it with great ease between December, 1857,
and March, 1858, and perhaps never composed anything with a lighter
touch or more unmingled pleasure. Twenty-five thousand copies were sold
or ordered of the publishers during the first week, and ten thousand in
London on the first day. In both theme and treatment the story was
thoroughly to his liking, and vindicated yet further that early instinct
which guided him to American subjects. Longfellow was himself descended,
it will be remembered, from the very marriage he described, thus
guaranteeing a sympathetic treatment, while the measure is a shade
crisper and more elastic than that of "Evangeline," owing largely to the
greater use of trochees. It is almost needless to say that no such
effort can ever be held strictly to the classic rules, owing to the
difference in the character of the language. With German hexameters the
analogy is closer.

On July 10, 1861, Mrs. Longfellow died the tragic death which has been
so often described, from injuries received by fire the day before. Never
was there a greater tragedy within a household; never one more simply
and nobly borne. It was true to Lowell's temperament to write frankly
his sorrow in exquisite verse; but it became Longfellow's habit, more
and more, to withhold his profoundest feelings from spoken or written
utterance; and it was only after his death that his portfolio, being
opened, revealed this sonnet, suggested by a picture of the western
mountain whose breast bears the crossed furrows.

THE CROSS OF SNOW

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face--the face of one long dead--
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen