Hence Away Begone Begone - Analysis

An argument staged as an eviction

The poem reads like a mind talking itself into freedom. Its central claim is blunt: melancholy is not a rightful ruler, even if it has acted like one for years. By addressing carking care and melancholy directly, Longfellow turns an inner condition into an unwanted guest. The repeated command Hence away, begone, begone is less a polite dismissal than an eviction notice—an attempt to redraw the boundaries of the self.

Personified sorrow as a would-be governor

What makes the speaker’s refusal vivid is the political language of control: Think ye thus to govern me / All my life long. Care and melancholy aren’t merely feelings; they are authorities trying to run the household. The speaker answers with a counter-authority: Reason shall have the mastery. That line isn’t dreamy consolation—it’s managerial, almost legalistic, as if the speaker is drafting a new constitution where reason outranks mood. Yet the need to repeat the refrain suggests how hard that transfer of power is: if melancholy were easy to banish, the poem wouldn’t have to say begone so many times.

The tone turns from vow to curse

Midway, the poem shifts from confident self-command to wary vigilance. The opening promises control—That shall ye not, I promise ye—but the second half admits the threat of relapse: If ever ye return this way. The speaker imagines melancholy arriving with its mournful company, as though sadness is social, contagious, bringing a whole entourage of habits and thoughts. The response escalates to a near-superstitious severity: A curse be on ye, and the day / That brings ye moping back to me! The poem’s emotional logic is clear: because melancholy has been so persuasive in the past, the speaker feels the need not only to refuse it but to stigmatize its return.

The unresolved tension: reason as mastery, not cure

The poem insists that reason can rule, but it never claims reason can erase sorrow. That’s the tension underneath the shouting: mastery is a posture of control, not a guarantee of peace. When the speaker says Hence away, begone, I say!, the emphasis falls on the act of saying—on willpower performed aloud. The poem ends where it began, repeating the banishment, which quietly admits the cost of this stance: the speaker’s freedom is something that must be reasserted, not something permanently secured.