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Lyric Poem · Nature

Afternoon in February

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1The day is ending,

2The night is descending;

3The marsh is frozen,

4The river dead.

5Through clouds like ashes

6The red sun flashes

7On village windows

8That glimmer red.

9The snow recommences;

10The buried fences

11Mark no longer

12The road o'er the plain;

13While through the meadows,

14Like fearful shadows,

15Slowly passes

16A funeral train.

17The bell is pealing,

18And every feeling

19Within me responds

20To the dismal knell;

21Shadows are trailing,

22My heart is bewailing

23And tolling within

24Like a funeral bell.

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Quick facts

Poem
Afternoon in February
Poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Length
24 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Death & Loss, Winter

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
24 lines · 6 quatrains
Line length
Mostly 5-syllable lines.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
Source record
PoetryDBAfternoon in February by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 2dfe8fb18d929cd3
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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