'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy.

These lines open Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s narrative poem “The Golden Legend,” published in 1851 as part of his larger project Christus: A Mystery. Longfellow frames the medieval legend with a vivid springtime scene set on Easter Sunday, using the sensory fullness of blossoming trees and perfumed air to establish a mood of renewal before the poem turns to spiritual trial and redemption. Written during Longfellow’s most productive mid-career period, the poem reflects his sustained interest in Christian tradition and European legend, filtered through a distinctly American Romantic lyricism and an emphasis on atmosphere and moral feeling.

The couplet juxtaposes liturgical time (Easter Sunday) with the natural world’s exuberant springtime awakening. “Full-blossomed trees” and air “filled…with fragrance and with joy” translate the theological promise of resurrection into palpable, earthly sensation: renewal is not only a doctrine but an experience. Longfellow’s diction suggests abundance and saturation (“filled all the air”), implying that joy can be ambient—something one breathes in—yet the heightened beauty also functions as a threshold, preparing the reader for the poem’s ensuing contrasts between outward celebration and inward struggle. Nature becomes a symbolic chorus to the sacred calendar.