Come Unto Me, and I Will Give You Rest

This post begins a new series on Longfellow’s six Dante sonnets. NB: Large portions of the explication of this sonnet are taken from a paper which I wrote for Linguistics.

While Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was translating Dante’s Divine Comedy, he wrote six sonnets to be prefixed to his translation. In these sonnets, he compares the structure of the Divine Comedy to the architecture of a Gothic cathedral. The first two sonnets are prefixed to Inferno and describe Longfellow the pilgrim’s entrance into the cathedral. Longfellow achieves a reverent mood in this first sonnet by a skillful use of linguistic devices, such as syntactic structure in the sonnet form, word choice, and word placement, to center his poem around prayer.

This sonnet is written in the Italian style, so that the octave describes the entrance of an ordinary laborer and the sestet depicts the entrance of Longfellow the pilgrim. Longfellow skillfully uses syntactic structures of sentences within the sonnet form to convey his meaning. In the octave, the first two lines set up the scene before the cathedral, both for the workman and for Longfellow the pilgrim. Line three shows the laborer laying down his burden, then entering the cathedral in line four.

The sestet reverses this description, as Longfellow the pilgrim enters the cathedral in line nine and leaves his burden in line ten. This chiastic structure is repeated later between the octave and sestet, when the business of the outside world (lines 7-8, 12-13) is enclosed by the silence of waiting (6, 14).

The central lines of the octave and sestet come in lines five and eleven. “Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er” and “Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray” both emphasize the devotional aspect of the poem (5, 11). Reverent prayer, the theme of this sonnet, is significantly placed at the center of the octave and sestet. The chiastic arrangement of the clauses in the sentences serves to emphasize Longfellow’s larger theme in the poem.

Longfellow’s word choices also serve to convey his meaning. Most of the words in the poem are only one or two syllables long. Words such as laborer, reverent, and eternal, while containing three syllables are elided to sound as two. This short length enables the reader to pause and breathe after every word, contributing to the slow and reverent mood of the poem. The four words with the most syllables – vociferations, undistinguishable, disconsolate, and inarticulate – emphasize the confusion and heaviness of the world outside. Inside the cathedral, all is quiet, brief, and restful.

In both the octave and sestet, the poet emphasizes burden at the same point in the meter. This shows the similarity between the laborer and Longfellow. These two men have a similar need for the rest and reverence of the cathedral. This can only be achieved by laying aside their burdens of the cares, noises, and disruptions of the world and entering the cathedral.

Another device Longfellow employs is accented and alliterative pairs. One of these is “day to day,” found in the first line of the sestet. It accents the pilgrim’s continual need for rest from the busy world outside. The other accented and alliterative pair closes the sestet with “watch and wait” (14). This last pair once again reminds the reader of the reverent nature of the poem. As he kneels in prayer, the pilgrim should “watch and wait” in the silence of the cathedral for God to speak.

Through syntactic structures, Longfellow builds his poem around a central theme of prayer. By using short words, he enables the reader to pause and rest in the silence of the cathedral. The meter emphasizes the pilgrim’s burden, and alliterative pairs to show how much the pilgrim needs peace. These elements of syntactic structure, word choice, and word placement combine to form a poem emphasizing reverence and rest.