Voices of the Night (1839) was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's first collection of poems. Published when he was a young Harvard professor, it contained A Psalm of Life and Hymn to the Night, and made him the most widely read poet in America almost overnight.
The book
The collection gathered nine new poems, some early verse written at Bowdoin and translations from Spanish, German, French and Italian poets. Its title came from the first poem, Hymn to the Night.
It appeared in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in December 1839, in a small edition that sold out quickly and was reprinted many times.
A Psalm of Life
The best-known poem of the book, A Psalm of Life, first printed in the Knickerbocker magazine in 1838, is a call to live actively and bravely rather than in regret. Longfellow later said he wrote it on a summer morning in 1838, in a mood of recovery after the death of his first wife.
Its short stanzas and memorable lines were copied into albums, set to music and recited in schools across the English-speaking world.
Reception
Readers loved the book's tenderness and moral encouragement. Some critics, Edgar Allan Poe among them, accused Longfellow of being too didactic and of borrowing from European poets.
Voices of the Night opened a career of popular success that made Longfellow, by the 1850s, the best-selling poet in America and very popular in Britain.
Anecdotes
Received at Windsor
Longfellow's poems were so popular in Britain that Queen Victoria received him at Windsor Castle in 1868. He was told that many of her servants knew his poems by heart.
A poem from grief
Longfellow lost his first wife, Mary, in 1835. The quieter poems of Voices of the Night, such as Footsteps of Angels, recall her memory.
Frequently asked questions
Which poems are in Voices of the Night?
Among others, Hymn to the Night, A Psalm of Life, The Light of Stars, Footsteps of Angels and The Reaper and the Flowers, followed by early poems and translations.
When was Voices of the Night published?
In December 1839, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Why was A Psalm of Life so popular?
Its simple rhythm and its message of courage and action made it one of the most recited poems of the nineteenth century.