BY GIL VICENTE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This short poem is a passionate plea from a lover to a sleeping girl, urging her to join him at dawn, before the world stirs to life. He tells her to forget about shoes — just come as she is, barefoot, through the dewy grass and flowing water. It beautifully captures the exhilarating, carefree spirit of young love and the thrill of escaping together.

The tone blends tenderness with urgency—a whisper that feels like a command. The lines have a lilting, song-like quality that makes the urgency feel less threatening and more like an invitation to adventure. Beneath this lightness, there’s a subtle romance that belongs to the hour just before sunrise.

Longfellow crafted this poem as a loose translation or interpretation of the work of Gil Vicente, a playwright and poet from Portugal and Spain who lived around 1465 to 1536. Vicente is often regarded as the father of Portuguese theatre, and his lyric poems — many of which are dawn songs, or *albas* — are celebrated for their straightforward, musical language and themes of love and parting at sunrise. Longfellow had a keen interest in European literature and languages, producing numerous translations and adaptations throughout his career. By naming the poem after Vicente, Longfellow indicates that he’s honoring Vicente’s work rather than claiming it as entirely his own. This poem fits into the tradition of the *alba* or aubade — a genre with roots in medieval Provençal poetry — where lovers must part or meet at dawn.