Santa Filomena ,” which he wrote for The Atlantic ’s inaugural issue, in November 1857, attests to his lifelong belief in the value of sacrifice. Then in his 50s, Longfellow had been a professor at ...

One way to gain insight into someone’s psyche is to read what they wrote when they were 13. For Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, that’s his very first published poem, “The Battle of Lovell’s ...