Verses In Vox Porchlight Family Media

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem "Excelsior" in the early morning hours of September 28, 1841, and it was published for the first time in a periodical four months later. Excelsior is a Latin word which loosely translated means "ever upward" or "always higher". With that in mind, this poem could be interpreted as a sort of allegory on perseverance and always striving against the odds, or alternatively, blindly following your own desires without heeding the advice and counsel of others. Either way you choose to read the piece, it is beautifully written with lots of vivid imagery as the narrative unfolds.

Full notes: https://verses.porchlightfamilymedia.com/2019/05/excelsior-by-henry-wadsworth-longfellow.html

First published in a periodical just a few days before Christmas in 1888, "Christmas at Sea" is a vivid narrative poem that pulls the reader into the scenes. The stark contrast between the warm, domestic scene and the freezing weather onboard the ship is very poignant and is the most interesting part of the piece to me. While the Scottish writer is known more for his novels, he also wrote three volumes of poetry with the first one, A Child's Garden of Verses, being the most known to casual poetry fans.

Born in rural Massachusetts in 1807, John Greenleaf Whittier began to write poetry at a young age with his first poem being published in the summer of 1826. Shortly thereafter, he began working as an editor of various periodicals. The poem "In School-days" was written in 1869 and Whittier may have drawn a bit on his own experience as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. The poem was praised by the public as well as by other poets with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commenting, "There is something more in education than is set down in the school-books. Whittier has touched this point very poetically in that little lyric of his." Oliver Wendell Holmes said of the poem in a letter to Whittier, "...I had no sooner read them [the lines] that I fell into such ecstasy that I could hardly find words too high-colored to speak of them to my little household. I hardly think I dared read them aloud. My eyes fill with tears just looking at them in my scrapbook, now, while I am writing."

Full notes: http://verses.porchlightfamilymedia.com/2018/11/in-school-days-by-john-greenleaf-whittier.html

Probably the most well-known poem by Walt Whitman, "O Captain! My Captain!" is a moving metaphor for President Abraham Lincoln's leadership of the country during the Civil War and his assassination which shocked the nation. This poem is actually only one of a handful that Whitman wrote in honor of Lincoln, whom he greatly admired. "O Captain" was written in 1865 shortly after the death of the President and was published later the same year in a small booklet containing a collection of 18 of Whitman's poems.

Complete notes: https://verses.porchlightfamilymedia.com/2018/04/o-captain-my-captain-by-walt-whitman.html