Drop Longfellow into a literary conversation nowadays and you will get some odd looks. The exchanges that follow will include words and phrases like “mawkish,” “shallow,” “trite,” “mechanical,” “unadventurous,” “tame,” “jingles,” “slave to conventional modes and diction,” “the innocence of America’s literary youth,” and so on. For all that, Longfellow has been a continuous presence in our language since Voices of the Night was published in 1839, and his lines are still familiar today, though many who know them could not tell you who wrote them. – New Criterion