Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Delia

Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth

Delia - meaning Summary

Gentle Remembrance of Loss

Longfellow's short lyric addresses memory and mourning. The speaker compares a departed loved one’s remembrance to lingering fragrance of crushed flowers and to a consoling song that will not return. The tone is tender and resigned, accepting rest and sleep as the best release for the beloved. The poem focuses on gentle, elegiac consolation rather than overt grief, framing memory as sweet yet irrevocably lost.

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Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives, When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives, Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain, But never will be sung to us again, Is thy remembrance. Now the hour of rest Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling; it is best.

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