Nature
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

US nineteenth century poet and author.

Best known for the poem Hiawatha (1855). His first book of poetry was Voices of the Night (1839) which included Hymn to the Night and A Psalm of Life, Ballads and Other Poems (1841) included The Village Blacksmith and The Skeleton in Armor. Among his other works are Outre-Mer: A pilgrimage Beyond the Sea (1833-34), Hyperion (1839), Poems on Slavery (1842), a drama The Spanish Student (1843), Evangeline (1847), Kavanagh and The Seaside and the Fireside (1849), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Among his last collections were The Masque of Pandora (1875) and In the Harbor (1882). He also wrote a translation of Dante (1865-6) and a trilogy Christus (1872) which incorporated an earlier work The Golden Legend.

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Nature
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

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Nature by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow