The Untold Story of Love and Loss Behind the Beautiful Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A life-affirming poet transformed grief into beauty

The family of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poses for a photographer in Venice, 1869. Longfellow is seated center. Of those standing, his son Ernest is second from right and his eldest daughter Alice Mary is second from left. His daughters Edith and Anne Allegra sit on the ground. Public domain

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s popularity among average Americans of his day is something contemporary poets dream about. An international celebrity, he dispensed pre-signed autographs to the many fans who visited his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hoping to meet the author of “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “The Song of Hiawatha.” His work is famous for his placid optimism, and critics today often deride it as shallow. But beneath the surface of the galloping meters and charming imagery lies an undercurrent of melancholy—even of profundity. His love life served as an inspiration to his verse, and when his two marriages ended in tragedy, he coped with despair by creating some of the most life-affirming poetry ever written.

First Love

In 1831, Longfellow, age 24, married Mary Potter, the beautiful and well-educated daughter of a Boston judge. He was drawn to her “pure heart and guileless disposition,” and Mary, too, was smitten. Longfellow was aspiring toward his boyhood dream of becoming a professional writer but struggled to find his literary voice. It was Mary who influenced his decision to resume writing poetry, a youthful practice that had fallen into neglect since he became a professor at Bowdoin College.

Longfellow’s birthplace, located on the corner of Hancock and Fore streets in Portland, Maine, was demolished in 1955. Public domain

Portrait of Longfellow by his son Ernest, 1876. Public domain

The couple enjoyed four happy years together. Then, in 1835, while traveling Europe, Mary suffered a miscarriage and died from the resulting infection. Henry was devastated. He expressed a desire to be with her in heaven, and he wrote a friend that when standing over her grave, he imagined seeing “my own tomb.” He spent the next several years tinkering with a poem that channeled his sorrow into verse. The result, “Footsteps of Angels,” is about a lonely, grieving narrator who is visited by deceased acquaintances. One of them, a “Being Beauteous,” consoles him with the knowledge that she has found a final resting place:

With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer, Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, Breathing from her lips of air.

It was around this time that Longfellow also wrote a series of “psalms,” as he called them—poems symbolizing an acceptance of Mary’s death. The first piece, entitled “A Psalm of Life,” includes many lines that have become popular phrases: “Life is but an empty dream,” “Let the dead Past bury its dead,” “Footprints on the sands of time,” and “Learn to labor and to wait.” The poem established Longfellow’s voice and was an instant success.

A Second Chance at Happiness

Nine months after Mary’s untimely death, Longfellow met Frances “Fanny” Appleton. He accompanied her family through the Swiss Alps as they talked about art and literature. Henry was quite taken with the “rare, sweet woman” and her sophisticated mind. But while Fanny admired his erudition and enjoyed his conversation, she did not consider him more than a friend. He was persistent, however, courting her with increasing anguish after their return to New England. Friends expressed concern about Longfellow’s well-being, commenting on his “pale” and “low-spirited” appearance. Henry poured his feelings out into a novel, “Hyperion,” about an American touring Europe who unsuccessfully tries wooing a charming female with qualities strikingly similar to Fanny Appleton’s. Fanny was unimpressed when she read it, and it was not until 1843—seven years after Longfellow began courting her—that she agreed to marry him.

Chalk portrait of Fanny Longfellow, 1859, by Samuel Worcester Rowse, which is referenced in Henry’s poem “The Cross of Snow.” Public domain

The years that followed were the happiest of Longfellow’s life. Nicholas Basbanes’s recent biography of Longfellow, “Cross of Snow,” includes selections of previously unpublished letters to detail the couple’s intimate relationship. As she was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Henry’s marriage to Fanny brought him material comfort as well as intellectual companionship. Fanny, a skilled artist and writer herself, assisted him in many of his creative projects. In a love sonnet, “The Evening Star,” he paid tribute to “My best and gentlest lady.” She even served as the muse behind the love stories in his longer narrative poems “Evangeline” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” The couple had six children together and thrived in their Brattle Street mansion for nearly 20 years.