“As Unto the bow the the cord is ,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him , yet she follows:
Useless each without the other.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The Day is Done
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems
“Let us labor for an inward stillness–
An inward stillness and an inward healing.
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks to us and we wait
In singleness of heart that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will and do that only”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn
“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion
that if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilled on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The Rainy Day
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems
“For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves
that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longellow
“…for it is the fate of a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.
Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women
Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers
Runnng through caverns of darkness…”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The courtship of Miles Standish, and other poems
“Love gives itself; it is not bought.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Resolve, and thou art free.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Let us, then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A noble type of good.
Heroic womanhood. ”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Unasked, Unsought, Love gives itself but is not bought”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The Children’s Hour
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The Arrow and the Song
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“When thou are not pleased, beloved,
Then my heart is sad and darkened,
As the shining river darkens
When the clouds drop shadows on it!
When thou smilest, my beloved,
Then my troubled heart is brightened,
As in sunshine gleam the ripples
That the cold wind makes in rivers.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The human voice is the organ of the soul.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon,
In the round-tower of my heart,
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in the dust away!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun”
― Henry Wadworth Longfellow
“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. ”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Art is long, and Time is fleeting.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Voices of the Night
tags: art, poetry
“We are all architects of faith, ever living in these walls of time.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives,
When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,
Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,
But never will be sung to us again,
Is they remembrance. Now the hour of rest
Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling: it is best.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Youth comes but once in a lifetime”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The nearer the dawn
the darker the night.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Then followed that beautiful season… Summer….
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“And when she was good she was very very good. But when she was bad she was horrid.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“She floats upon the river of his thoughts.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“In the long run men hit only what they aim at.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The story, from beginning to end, I found again in a heart of a friend.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Great is the art of beginning.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow