Poem Analysis: "A Day of Sunshine" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Learn about the themes, styles, and literary devices used by Romance period poet Longfellow in his poem honoring the warm days of summer
Poem
“A Day of Sunshine” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Contents
An ode to a beautiful summer’s day, as it relates to the freedom and joy found in the human spirit.
The human spirit has the ability to gain more freedom by experiencing nature’s unbridled beauty.
Themes
Nature
Freedom
Style
Melodic/lyrical
Rhyming
Literary Devices
Imagery
Caesura
Tetrameter
AABB Rhyme Scheme
Notes on Romantic Period poetry
Rich imagery
The human spirit is portrayed as valiant
Often Nature-driven
Enhanced emotions
A love of life
Gaining knowledge through sensory experience of the world around you
“A Day of Sunshine” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O gift of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!
Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,
Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.
Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!
O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?
*This poem is in the public domain
Definitions of words used in the poem:
Galleon - a large Spanish ship of the 15th-17th centuries
Craggy - rough, uneven, rugged texture
Throng - a crowd of people
Blithe - happy and joyous; also showing cheerful and casual indifference
What is “A Day of Sunshine” about?
Romantic era poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow basks in the warmth and glow of a sunny summer’s day with this poem released in 1958 in one of his collections. What begins as an ode to beautiful weather soon turns into a relation to the human spirit.
Early lines like “I hear the wind among the trees/ Playing celestial symphonies” gives the reader a sensory experience, and helps the poem come to life, much like the world around Longfellow on this particular day.
The American poet compared the bustling wind to a symphony, and the sun in the blue sky to a “golden galleon,” or a large ship sailing through the “sapphire sea” which represents the crystal clear sky.
As the poem progresses though, Longfellow’s ability to relate beautiful imagery to the valiant nature of a virtuous human spirit comes into play.
The lines “O Life and Love! O happy throng/ Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!” set up the stage for the closing lines, which not only relate “life” and “love” to the striking beauty and brilliance of the day, but poses an important question in closing for the reader to ponder:
“O heart of man! Canst thou not be/ Blithe as the air is, and as free?”
The last lines directly relate the “heart of man” to the nature all around the protagonist of the poem, and asks confidently, as if to say his question has already been answered, can man attain the kind of freedom and joy that a summer’s day so beautifully represents?
If you asked Longfellow, one of the Romantic era’s most popular poets, his answer would have been a resounding, “Yes.”
Themes of Nature and Freedom are at the center of this poem, which are two common themes explored throughout the Romantic period.
What is the Style of this poem?
Longfellow used a melodic style of writing that fell beautifully on a listener’s ear when his poetry was read aloud. He was a prominent figure in the Fireside Poets circle, which consisted of poets who were household names in America because families loved to gather around the fireplace in their homes and read the works of these writers to each other.
What are some Literary Devices used in this poem?
Meter- The particular metrical pattern used in “A Day of Sunshine” is tetrameter, which simply means there are eight syllables contained in each line (also referred to as 4 metrical “feet”). Thinking in musical terms, the use of the metrical literary device is what gives music, especially poetry, its rhythm.
It’s important to note that in many metrical, melodic poems, there are often lines which break from the pattern and contain a different amount of syllables, or a forced stop on the rhythm (known as a caesura). These breaks are used with purpose to bring extra focus to important parts of the poem.
Longfellow makes good use of a caesura with this line:
“Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms”
The use of the comma and exclamation point add drama and bring attention to the line, giving rise to a vivid picture in the reader’s mind of wind blowing into a room, rattling the curtains and cooling down the summer-warm house.
Much like in music, the poem’s rhyme scheme is of great importance. Notice that Longfellow uses an AABB rhyme scheme, which means within each 4-line stanza, the first two lines (AA) rhyme with each other, and the last two lines (BB) rhyme with each other.
The Romantic Period
Popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Romantic period poets used rich, vivid imagery and melodic verses to communicate messages of joy, beauty, and freedom. Important to understand about the romantic poets was their love of living. They sought to bring the essence of the world around them to the page. Because of this, sensory experience, which includes what one sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels, was a core philosophical part of romanticism.
In the 19th century, several romantic poets became known as the “Fireside Poets” due to their popularity. Similar to celebrities today, the American population (particularly in the Northeast) became so enthralled with these poets they became household names.
Families and classes would often meet and gather around in a circle reciting and reading the poems of Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and others.