Publication: The poem, Daybreak, is taken from Longfellow’s Birds of Passage (Flight the First), published in 1858.
Main Theme: Some of Longfellow’s poems, such as, Daylight and Moonlight, Hymn to the Night, Daybreak, and The Rainy Day describe different times of the day. The poem, Daybreak, highlights morning, the beginning of the day. At dawn, a wind blows from the sea. It announces the beginning of the day. On its way, it encounters the mists, the mariners, the forest, the wood-bird, the chanticleer, the fields of corn, the belfry tower, and the dead of the cemetery. The wind urges all, except the dead in the churchyard, to wake up. It calls upon the belfry tower to ring its bell to proclaim the hour at daybreak. But, it permits the dead to lie quietly.
Speciality: The wind is a part of living Nature. He imagines the wind to be a human being and personifies it by giving it the ability to talk. The language of the poem is very simple.
