LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth (1807-82). Autograph manuscript, signed ("Henry W. Longfellow"), of his poem, "A Psalm of Life", 25 October 1864. A fair copy of the complete poem on three-and-a-half-pages. With a letter by Harriet Martineau.

LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth (1807-82).  Autograph manuscript, signed ("Henry W. Longfellow"), of his poem, "A Psalm of Life", 25 October 1864. A fair copy of the complete poem on three-and-a-half-pages, 224 x 177mm, bifolium; tipped on to an album leaf. "... Tell me not, in mournful numbers, / Life is but an empty dream! / For the soul is dead that slumbers, / And things are not what they seem ...". The poem, often, as here, subtitled "What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist", was written in response to the death of Longfellow's first wife, Mary Storer Potter, and was first published anonymously in the October 1838 issue of "The Knickerbocker". It has been described by the Longfellow scholar Robert L. Gale as "the most popular poem ever written in English", and lines such as "footprints on the sands of time" have entered the lexicon. [With, tipped onto the verso of the same leaf from the album] Harriet Martineau (1802-1876).  Autograph letter, signed, to Mr [C. A.] Murray, indistinctly dated, arranging various visits, two-pages. Provenance: A note above the Longfellow manuscript describes it as "sent by him to Lady Murray" (presumably Edith, Lady Murray, 2nd wife of the diplomat and author Sir Charles Augustus Murray); Sotheby's, London, 20 & 21 July 1981, lot 539.