Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Autograph transcript signed ("Henry W. Longfellow") of his poem "A Psalm of Life. What the heart of the Young Man said to the Psalmist," 3 pages on a bifolium of light blue paper (9 x 6 3/4 in.; 227 x 172 mm), Cambridge, 26 August 1845; a few pinholes in margins, marginal annotation in another hand at head of first page ("Longfellow born in Maine America 1807"). Red morocco portfolio gilt.

J. William Middendorf II (Christie's, 17 May 1989, lot 131)

"A Psalm of Life" was first published in the October 1838 issue of Knickerbocker Magazine and included in Longfellow's first poetry collection, Voices of the Night (1839). While among the most didactic of his verses, it has always ranked as one of his most popular as well. Because of its popularity, autograph quotations from this work are relatively common, but full transcriptions of all nine quatrains, as here, are scarce. The fourth verse still resonates especially with those who labor in the fields of bibliography, "Art is long, and Time is fleeting; | And our hearts, though stout and brave, | Still, like muffled drums are beating | Funeral marches to the grave."