God's Acre by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Poetry: The Best Words in the Best Order - #BlogchatterA2ZChallenge2021

 God's-Acre

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

                                                                    word histories

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls 

The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;

It consecrates each grave within its walls,

And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

Gods-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imports

Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown

The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,

Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.

Into its furrow shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith, that we shall rise again

At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast

Shall winnow like a fan the chaff and grain.

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,

In the fair gardens of that second birth;

And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers. which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,

And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;

This is the field and Acre of our God,

This is the place where human harvests grow!

SlideShare

The Poet: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - (1807 - 1882)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a 19th century American poet who captured the imagination of the world with his poems that were lyrical in tone, often comprising themes that revolved around mythology and legend. He was one of the few American writers to be honoured in England, proof of which lies in the installation of his bust in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. His fame grew over time and some of his most popular poems like 'Evangeline', 'Paul Revere's Ride' and his iconic 'A Psalm of Life' are even today taught in schools across the world. Who can forget the wonderful lines from the latter poem that come instantly to people's lips?                                                            

                                             Lives of great men all remind us

  We can make our lives sublime,

 And departing, leave behind us

 Footprints on the sands of time;

 Footprints, that perhaps another

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

      A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing shall take heart again.

                                                                 A Psalm of Life                                                     

                                                                     Pinterest

                                  Longfellow Winter Ale 1995 ( A Scene from Evangeline)

Slated to follow a career in law, Longfellow veered to a year of study in literature and modern languages, and instead turned into a professor. Thereafter, he continued to teach and write, writing wonderful poems like 'The Wreck of the Hesperus', 'My Lost Youth' and 'My Day is Done'. His gentle poetic nature attracted many admirers, and at his funeral, his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, eulogized him as 'a sweet and beautiful soul'.

                                                                                Pinterest                                                                 

'God's Acre' is an Anglo-Saxon term that means 'God's Fields' and refers to the grounds under which people have buried their dead. The German word is similar - 'Gottesacker'.

The poet likes the name because he feels it gives a sanctity to each grave, almost as though God were breathing a blessing over it. He goes on to say that every human being will be cast into the same furrow, and rise again on the Day of Judgment when the Archangel will distinguish between the good and the evil. 

The good will receive their rewards as they enter the immortal gardens where their perfume will mingle with the perfume of the flowers that bloom in Heaven above.

The poet tells Death to turn up the soil and spread the furrow in God's-Acre where human harvests thrive and, if found worthy, are taken to Heaven.

'God's-Acre' is a poem that reveals the deceptive simplicity of Longfellow's writing, in which numerous truths are hidden.

                                         Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Biography

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