Mezzo Cammin
Mezzo Cammin - meaning Summary
Midlife Reckoning in Verse
Longfellow confronts midlife with sober self-assessment. He regrets not achieving the youthful ambition to build a "tower of song," not from idleness but because sorrow and burdens diverted him. From a vantage halfway up life’s hill he surveys a dim, distant past and senses mortality approaching. The poem compresses resignation, lingering hope for future accomplishment, and awareness of death’s imminence into a brief, reflective meditation on time and purpose.
Read Complete AnalysesHalf of my life is gone, and I have let The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The aspiration of my youth, to build Some tower of song with lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret Of restless passions that would not be stilled, But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, -- A city in the twilight dim and vast, With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights, -- And hear above me on the autumnal blast The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
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