When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow died on March 24, 1882, at the age of seventy-five, he was the most celebrated poet in the English-speaking world, Not only was he America's first professional poet, but, after his death, he was the first American to have his bust placed in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey in London, England. Longfellow was an unsurpassed master in his use of musical language. Few poets could match his sonorous and rhythmically...