“It is the mystery of the unknownThat fascinates us; we are children stillWayward and wistful; with one hand we clingTo the familiar things we call our own,And with the other, resolute of will,Grope in the dark for what the day will bring”

American poet and educator

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He became one of the best-known literary figures of 19th-century New England, and is remembered for poems such as "Paul Revere's Ride," The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He also made a notable contribution as a translator, becoming the first American to complete a translation of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group whose work reached a wide domestic audience in its time.