“Nature” is the work of a poet in his maturity. Longfellow drafted what would become “Nature” when he was past 70 years old. Within his lifetime, Longfellow buried two wives; he watched most of his colleagues die; he suffered through a civil war that cost the country he loved close to a million dead, counted and uncounted. He escaped multiple brushes with death and, at the time of the poem’s composition, struggled with numerous debilitating circulatory conditions. However, none of that impacts the quiet and steady joy in the poem in which Longfellow offers hope: He states that after the day is done, we will settle down for a good night’s sleep and await a tomorrow we cannot begin to comprehend.

Longfellow, speaking from his earned reputation as his generation’s leading light, seeks to counsel readers how best to approach the inevitability of death. Longfellow was a lifelong Christian and believed in the afterlife. However, he could also not ignore the cultural press of the new sciences that, in measuring the hard data of the earth and the solar system, seemed to challenge the idea of an afterlife. Therefore, Longfellow offers as metaphor the perplexing state of contemporary Christians who, as they grow older, must face the reality of their mortality: a small child, bewildered, confused, tired, and, even as he trundles off to a grateful rest, sorting through the implications of the gentle promise that tomorrow will bring with it blessings and gifts the child cannot begin to understand.