The Fire of Drift-wood - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Terry M Pace
I read all of Longfellow’s poetry several times in the beginning of the 1980’s when I was in my early 20’s, even the long epic poems such as The song of Hiawatha and Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. Many of his shorter poems I learned by heart. His naturalistic, narrative, and deeply psychological views on the world had a profound influence on me and he is still a favorite poet and intellectual guide to me. My late 1800’s copy of his complete poetical works has many lose pages and is one of my true treasures. In looking for memorable verses of wisdom I have often returned to Longfellow and use to sometimes quote or recommend him to my psychotherapy patients.
The Fire of Drift-wood
We sat within the farm-house old, Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold, An easy entrance, night and day. Not far away we saw the port, The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, The lighthouse, the dismantled fort, The wooden houses, quaint and brown. We sat and talked until the night, Descending, filled the little room; Our faces faded from the sight, Our voices only broke the gloom. We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead; And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again; The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in too great excess. The very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark. Oft died the words upon our lips, As suddenly, from out the fire Built of the wreck of stranded ships, The flames would leap and then expire. And, as their splendor flashed and failed, We thought of wrecks upon the main, Of ships dismasted, that were hailed And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames, The ocean, roaring up the beach, The gusty blast, the bickering flames, All mingled vaguely in our speech; Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain, The long-lost ventures of the heart, That send no answers back again. O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! They were indeed too much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
Longfellow (RIP 1807-1882) wrote this poem: The Fire of Drift-wood in 1846 upon a visit to Devereux Farm by the sea on the coast of Maine. The poem tells of the reminiscing of old friends who talked "until the night descending filled the little room" and then the fire began to glow as they talked "of many a vanished scene, of what we once had thought or said, of what had been, or might have been, of who was changed , or who was dead."
Its just such a vivid and universal portrait of the gatherings of old friends, the stories they tell and the often-unspoken feelings shared. This poem was helpful to me in giving words and comfort after I had first moved in my 20’s from our family, friends, and roots in Texas to Nebraska for my graduate school. I had already read Longfellow at least twice from cover to cover from the 1893 version of Cambridge Classics - Longfellow's Complete Poetical Works, that I received from the estate of my wife’s maternal grandfather. But reading these words on a frosty winter night in late 1983 had a profound effect on me: "And all that fills the hearts of friends, when first they feel, with secret pain, their lives henceforth have separate ends, and never can be one again...".
I had then, not only moved far away from all my known friends and family (except, thankfully for my dear wife), but I had also moved intellectually and spiritually in my views in different directions. It was the latter more than the former that left me the loneliest. But knowing Longfellow had known the same experiences and put words and feeling to it, helped me accept these changes as normal during life. I have since known these feelings of change so often: upon deaths, upon illnesses, upon moves, upon graduations, upon job changes, upon fallings apart, upon children grown, upon new understandings and the pain is still sensitive for me sometimes. We all know these times and our moments of realization that things will never be just the same. It is universal. It is shocking. It can hurt or frighten us deeply. Yet, we must cross these moments and live, mourning, remembering, appreciating, celebrating, moving on into life anew once again.