Pages

Showing posts with label Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Show all posts

Saturday, January 9, 2016

"Snow-Flakes" By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From "Baika Jo = The Plum Blossom Album" Baikan Okada, 1808


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.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

"Hymn to the Night" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Starry Night" by Edward Potthast, 1918


I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above:
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose:
The fountain of prepetual peace flows there--
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!

Written 1839. Public Domain.