Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 2
Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950., Ed.

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[40] ‘efforts.’ Longfellow was more fortunately employed when he put himself in the company of Cowper and Bryant, and sought solace for his private woes in an extensive piece of poetical translation. Perhaps his true genius as a translator, seen early in the Coplas de Manrique (1833), is better exemplified in his numerous renderings of lyrics, particularly, as in Uhland's The Castle by the sea, from the German, than in the faithful, meritorious version of The divine comedy, which appeared in three volumes between 1867 and 1870; but, despite a certain lack of metrical charm resulting from the facile character of the rhymeless lines printed in threes, the version of the masterpiece to which Longfellow gave so many years of love and study seems worthy of his pains and of the praise it has received from other admirers of Dante.

After the appearance of the translation of Dante and of the Christus, two works de longue haleine which show that the retired professor of nearly twenty years standing was not open to the charge of idleness, Longfellow had still about a decade to live and to continue his writing. Some of the titles of his collections of verse have been already given; others are The Masque of Pandora, and other poems (1875), Keramos; and Other Poems (1878), Ultima Thule (1880), and In the Harbor (1882—posthumous). The first of these volumes contained one of the most dignified and impressive of all his poems, one of the best occasional poems in American literature, the Morituri Salutamus, written for the semi-centennial of the poet's class at Bowdoin. It also contained A Book of Sonnets, fourteen in all, considerably extended in number in later editions of the poetical works. Some notable sonnets had been published with the translation of Dante, and to these Longfellow's later achievements in the same form are worthy pendants. High praise has been given to them by many critically minded readers of a later generation, who have wished, in default of admiration for Longfellow's earlier work, to combine patriotism with acumen in their praise of a poet whose reputation seemed to require rather delicate handling. Both the sonnets and their American encomiasts are fortunately unamenable to comments lacking in amiability, although it is open to doubt whether even such a pathetic sonnet as The Cross of snow, written at the close of the poet's life in memory of his