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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – from Waif

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 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 labour
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