Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the poplar American writer who in the 1863 poem 'The Birds of Killingworth', lines 126-128, wrote, "Tis always morning somewhere, and above / The awakening continents, from shore to shore, / Somewhere the birds are singing evermore." He wrote these words because he had a fascination with nature and he enjoyed the kaleidoscope of sight and sounds made by birds. He felt that song birds graced humans with their harmony and beauty. They told stories with their songs.

Longfellow was a commanding figure in the cultural life of 19th-century America. Born in Portland, Maine in 1807, he became a national literary figure by the 1850s. He was a world-famous personality by the time of his death in March 1882. He was a traveler, a linguist, and a romantic who identified with the great traditions of European literature and thought. At the same time, he was rooted in American life and history, which according to literary critics charged his imagination about untried themes and made him ambitious for success.

Longfellow's life was always active from his youth in Portland where he first demonstrated his literary talents, through his years studying languages in Europe and teaching at Bowdoin College, to his move to Cambridge, MA, where he taught at Harvard, married Fanny Appleton, and became a father. While doing these things, he wrote many of his most enduring poems until he finally began his elder years as both a celebrity poet and a grieving widower.

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