The Day Is Done

It is at the end of another day that I feel the need for respite. And those of you who have read me even a bit know that one of my favored places of respite is in the words of my favorite poet… Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Tonight, I ask a consideration of you, Dear Reader. Please give some thought to selecting someone (or even a group of family, or roommates, if available) and do something long lost in time. Read (aloud, and with thought and focus on these lovely ideas presented by this very human poet of old) this poem to them (or... I do this occasionally... read it to someone special over the phone). There is a connection made in doing this that is special… and I wish that special-ness for you as you share… The Day Is Done.

The Day Is Done
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in its 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 the strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And tonight 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 a benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of your 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.



IMAGES: Both BBC, Top two, Christine Gardner, Bottom two, File