L'envoi
L'envoi - meaning Summary
Comfort Across Life and Death
Longfellow's short poem addresses comforting voices and sounds that soothe the speaker's restless heart and carry a message of hope. These voices are urged to tell the fearful to "be of good cheer," blending natural imagery (groves, pine forests) with spiritual motifs (angels, tongues of the dead). The poem frames death not as final silence but as continued speaking, offering consolation and a sense of ongoing presence amid mortality.
Read Complete AnalysesYe voices, that arose After the Evening's close, And whispered to my restless heart repose! Go, breathe it in the ear Of all who doubt and fear, And say to them, "Be of good cheer!" Ye sounds, so low and calm, That in the groves of balm Seemed to me like an angel's psalm! Go, mingle yet once more With the perpetual roar Of the pine forest dark and hoar! Tongues of the dead, not lost But speaking from deaths frost, Like fiery tongues at Pentecost! Glimmer, as funeral lamps, Amid the chills and darn ps Of the vast plain where Death encamps!
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