QOTM...*: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(*Quote of the Month)

Over the pallid sea and the 

silvery mist of the meadows,

Silently one by one, in the 

infinite meadows of heaven,

Blossomed the lovely stars,

the forget-me-nots of the angels.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

OK, I know I did a quote from Longfellow a short time back, but looking up at the summer night skies these days I could not resist posting another. I had actually intended to share it last month when I did the selection from my nature journal entitled “Enhanced Night Vision,” a piece on stargazing and other kinds of seeing, but I forgot. Click the title to check it out if you missed it.

Longfellow, you may recall, was a 19^th Century American poet (1807-1882), a card-carrying romantic, his work replete with emotive phrases calling out the beauty of God’s creation. These particular lines are from the third chapter, Part 1, of his epic poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie. It is a beautiful quote within a beautiful piece, the story of a betrothed young woman and man separated from each other during the British deportation of early French settlers from the Canadian Maritimes in the mid-1700’s. The entire work is available for free from Amazon or Gutenberg, to be enjoyed by other hopeless romantics like me.

Many a time have I sat before the developing night sky watching stars appear thusly. Longfellow’s reference to them as ‘the forget-me-nots of the angels’ is a lovely thought, as Gail and I have also enjoyed countless times photographing these delightful little blue flowers in early spring. I had not considered the resemblance before reading the lines, but now cannot forget it.

~RGM, July 18, 2013