Sam:
I don't remember having seen that poem, and it's one I wouldn't think I'd forget. It's good work, faithful to its form and its subject. Thanks for posting it.
I suspect that one problem for Longfellow is that he can sound facile in an age that often expects poetry to be anguished. Yet to my ear, in addition to what for me is much lovely ornament (if not quite Stevens's essential gaudiness), there's almost always a startling, illuminating conceit, like that "poem of the air" image.
Maybe his stock was a bit inflated in his day, but it's unjustly deflated now.
RPW
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