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Allison Rau

Dr. Sterling

ENGL 1302

19 June 2017

Literary Analysis on The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls by Henry Longfellow

Henry Longfellow is an American Poet who gained a significant amount of popularity

extending from his many historical poetic masterpieces. The development of his works stems

from a simplistic view of emotional depth and possesses characteristic features such as his great

metrical skill to capture melancholic desolation that exists within life (Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow). Longfellows The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls embraces these characteristics

throughout the work by developing a theme that expands upon the natural inevitability of life and

deaths endless cycle. Longfellows poem The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls makes effective use

of foreshadowing to foretell how everything that lives must accept the conception of life and

death and its eternal cycle.

Longfellow immediately sets the tone when the poem foretells a shroud of darkness and a

foreboding call to an end. The beginning of the poem emphasizes Longfellows personal

perspective of life and death as he is shown to portray the notion of sadness and desolation

throughout many of his works (Woodward). The Tide Rises, The Tides Falls specifically

focuses the reality of existing under polar cycles of life and death. Through close observation,

Longfellow reflects this idea when he compares the rising and falling of waves to the light and

the dark realities of death. In the beginning of Longfellows poem, the Tide Rises, the tide falls

/ The twilight darkens, the curlew calls (lines 1-2) portrays the shifting of moving waves as a
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representation of how all living things constantly rotate in a harmonious succession between the

living and the passing. The waves rising imply how all living things that grow, must then fall to

an end. The author then depicts the impression of darkness and a curlews call to forebode the

eventual inevitability of death. Longfellow illustrates a birds eerie call to foreshadow how

darkness, or death, live amongst all creatures of mankind. The twilight darkens is implied to be

the shroud of darkness that engulfs the light as the day ends. The author successfully alludes to

the concept of death by bestowing the readers a foreboding sense of danger provided in this

context. He utilizes the concept of darkness throughout the poem to further anticipate and discern

fear within his writing.

Longfellow continues to portray the image of darkness to further foretell how death is an

unavoidable conclusion to all human life. The author describes darkness to be an effective

recurring trope that allows the readers to envision something negative, sad, or foreboding that

may occur within his works of literature (Woodward). In this case, Longfellow embeds

descriptive significance when he illustrates how Darkness settles on roofs and walls, / But the

sea, the sea in darkness calls (lines 6-7). The settling of roofs and walls foreshadows how

darkness, or death, begins to invade the comfort of home, further contrasting life as the light

darkness lurks. The author reverts to the sea as a source of life to contrast the invasion of

darkness that threatens, alternatively the eventual end of creation. Longfellow employs the word

call a second time to suggest that the sea is calling for the darkness to cast its shadow over the

water. This alludes to life calling for an eclipse of death and its power to inevitably end life. As

portrayed within The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, Longfellow illustrates darkness to emphasize

a negative connotation to heavily imply the theme of death. He applies the concept of the sea and
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the menacing darkness as foreshadowing towards life and deaths sequence of events.

Longfellow depicts foreshadowing as an underlying connotation to death, but also introduces

foreshadowing in celebration for the positive facets of life.

Longfellow's The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls emphasizes the meaning of eternal life

and death when he reassures the readers that natures creation will continue to exist after deaths

embrace. In contrast to Longfellows pessimistic perspectives of reality and life, the author

embraces an optimistic future that is also widely recognized throughout his works (Williams). He

suggests that life will continue to exist in an eternal cycle equivalent to the eternal cycle of death.

Longfellow expresses this idea towards the end of The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls when he

specifies how natures life among creatures and humans will continue to exist as the day returns.

This is shown when the author speaks of The morning breaks; the steed in their stalls, / Stamp

high and neigh; the holster calls as the day returns, / And the tide rises, the tide falls

(Longfellow lines 12-14). In contrast to death portrayed in the beginning of the work,

Longfellow finishes his poem by foreshadowing a comforting conclusion that life will also

discover means of inevitability. Despite death partaking in individual lives, life as a whole will

continue to exist. As indicated by the lines of the poem, the morning breaking suggests that the

dawn of a new day is beginning. Longfellow emphasizes the existence of life to continue through

the neighing of horses and the hollering of men. He then reverts back to the tide rising and

falling to portray how life, death, and loss will never change as it is a part of life. Longfellow

emphasizes this to foreshadow, from a positive point of view, that life will continue to exist

eternally, but will remain equally bounded alongside the deaths eternal grasp.
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Henry Longfellows The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls utilizes the literary device of

foreshadowing to describe how life exists in a harmonious balance between the cycle of life and

death. The poem obscures the boundary of how all living creatures may come to accept that the

process is inevitable in itself. By applying the theme of death, The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

vividly expresses how the author foretells the cycles many positive and negative characteristics,

and the significance his perspective has on deaths contribution in life.

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Works Cited

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Encyclopdia Britannica, Encyclopdia Britannica, 7 Feb.

2009, britannica.com/biography/Henry-Wadsworth-Longfellow. Accessed 19 June 2017.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls. Poetry Foundation, Poetry

Foundation, 27 May 2009, poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44651.

Accessed 19 June 2017.

Williams, Cecil. Image and Actuality. Literature Resource Center, Gale Cengage Learning, 15

Nov. 2008,

go.galegroup.com.lscsproxy.lonestar.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T001&resultListType=R

ESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=BasicSearchFormtPosition

=6&docId=GALE. Accessed 20 June 2017.

Woodward, Philip. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Literary Reference Center, EBSCO

Industries, 25 Oct. 2011,

web.a.ebscohost.com.lscsproxy.lonestar.edu/lrc/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=9436fa5c-0bd0-

4728-9392-14fb265392b0%40sessionmgr4009&hid=4109&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlw

LGN. Accessed 19 June 2017.