In The Harbour: Becalmed
Becalmed upon the sea of Thought,
Still unattained the land it sought,
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails,
Lies waiting the auspicious gales.
On either side, behind, before,
The ocean stretches like a floor,--
A level floor of amethyst,
Crowned by a golden dome of mist.
Blow, breath of inspiration, blow!
Shake and uplift this golden glow!
And fill the canvas of the mind
With wafts of thy celestial wind.
Blow, breath of song! until I feel
The straining sail, the lifting keel,
The life of the awakening sea,
Its motion and its mystery!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Voices Of The Night : L'Envoi
Ye voices, that arose
After the Evening's close,
And whispered to my restless heart repose!
Go, breathe it in the ear
Of all who doubt and fear,
And say to them, 'Be of good cheer!'
Ye sounds, so low and calm,
That in the groves of balm
Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!
Go, mingle yet once more
With the perpetual roar
Of the pine forest dark and hoar!
Tongues of the dead, not lost
But speaking from deaths frost,
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Mr. Finney's Turnip
Mr. Finney had a turnip,
And it grew, and it grew,
And it grew behind the barn,
And the turnip did no harm.
And it grew, and it grew,
Till it could grow no taller;
Then Mr. Finney took it up
And put it in the cellar.
There it lay, there it lay,
Till it began to rot ;
When his daughter Susie washed it
And put it in the pot.
Then she boiled it and boiled it,
As long as she was able;
Then his daughter Susie took it
And put it on the table.
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
L'Envoi
Ye voices, that arose
After the Evening's close,
And whispered to my restless heart repose!
Go, breathe it in the ear
Of all who doubt and fear,
And say to them, "Be of good cheer!"
Ye sounds, so low and calm,
That in the groves of balm
Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!
Go, mingle yet once more
With the perpetual roar
Of the pine forest dark and hoar!
Tongues of the dead, not lost
But speaking from deaths frost,
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Snow-Flakes. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Second)
Out of the bosom of the Air
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Elliot's Oak
Thou ancient oak! whose myriad leaves are loud
With sounds of unintelligible speech,
Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach,
Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd;
With some mysterious gift of tongues endowed,
Thou speakest a different dialect to each;
To me a language that no man can teach,
Of a lost race, long vanished like a cloud.
For underneath thy shade, in days remote,
Seated like Abraham at eventide
Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the unknown
Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote
His Bible in a language that hath died
And is forgotten, save by thee alone.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Statue Over The Cathedral Door. (From The German Of Julius Mosen)
Forms of saints and kings are standing
The cathedral door above;
Yet I saw but one among them
Who hath soothed my soul with love.
In his mantle,--wound about him,
As their robes the sowers wind,--
Bore he swallows and their fledglings,
Flowers and weeds of every kind.
And so stands he calm and childlike,
High in wind and tempest wild;
O, were I like him exalted,
I would be like him, a child!
And my songs,--green leaves and blossoms,--
To the doors of heaven would hear,
Calling even in storm and tempest,
Round me still these birds of air.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Tide Rises, the Tide Falls, The
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore.
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Summer Day By The Sea
The sun is set; and in his latest beams
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
From the dim headlands many a light-house gleams,
The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold,
O'erhead the banners of the night unfold;
The day hath passed into the land of dreams.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Sound of the Sea
The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine of foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!