"I see the lights of the village / Gleam through the rain and mist"
Longfellow creates a moody, evocative atmosphere in the first two stanzas of the poem. In particular, it is the rain that helps promote the feeling of melancholy that the speaker experiences. The rain brings chill and an indefinable sadness to an already-dark night. What is interesting, though, is that later in the poem there is a reference to "showers from the clouds of summer," but here the drops falling from the sky are not sorrowful; instead, they are light, transient. The fact that it is "summer" also changes the import, especially as Longfellow then compares the showers to "tears [that] from the eyelids start." Overall, then, he does not have a definitive comment to make regarding nature and its effects on man's soul; he acknowledges that nature has some bearing on one's thoughts, but the soul is a complex entity, and its stirrings cannot be fully explained by reference to the external world.
"Read from some humbler poet, / Whose songs gushed from his heart,"
Longfellow lauds the sorts of poets who do not write grand epics, who take for their subjects simple pleasures, who are more emotional than cerebral, who can calm and soothe rather than provoke. This is not surprising given that Longfellow was sometimes associated more with these types of poets rather than the "grand old masters." While "Evangeline" and "Hiawatha" are long works, much of Longfellow's oeuvre is of smaller, simpler, and sentimental works such as this poem, "Psalm of Life," and "The Children's Hour." Longfellow wasn't exceedingly emotional (in fact, he elided much of his own life and experiences from his work) but his poems reach for purity and intimacy.
