Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) was one of the earliest good American poets, most famous for his poem about Hiawatha. No one I know of knows exactly WHY there is a statue of Longfellow in DC (although it has been suggested that the Longfellow Memorial Association presented it to the city and they had to stick it SOMEwhere). An alternate explanation is that he wrote one of his epic poems about Pocahontas, who seems to have been a great favorite with DC artists and sculptors (her image appears in the Capitol Rotunda no less than three times).

The bemused expression on Longfellow's face in this statue suggests that he too is trying to figure out how in the world he ended up here.