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 perpetual 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!
Six Songs on Poems by Henry W. Longfellow
Song Cycle by Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961)
1. Hymn to the Night
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), "Hymn to the Night", appears in Voices of the Night, first published 1839
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]2. Mezzo Cammin
Half of my life is gone, and I have let The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The aspiration of my youth, to build Some tower of song with lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret Of restless passions that would not be stilled, But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, Kept me from what I may accomplish yet; Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,— A city in the twilight dim and vast, With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,— And hear above me on the autumnal blast The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), first published 1845
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]3. Snow‑Flakes
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.
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), "Snow-Flakes", appears in The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Other Poems, first published 1858
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
4. The Haunted Chamber
Each heart has its haunted chamber, Where the silent moonlight falls! On the floor are mysterious footsteps, There are whispers along the walls! And mine at times is haunted By phantoms of the Past As motionless as shadows By the silent moonlight cast. A form sits by the window, That is not seen by day, For as soon as the dawn approaches It vanishes away. It sits there in the moonlight Itself as pale and still, And points with its airy finger Across the window-sill. Without before the window, There stands a gloomy pine, Whose boughs wave upward and downward As wave these thoughts of mine. And underneath its branches Is the grave of a little child, Who died upon life’s threshold, And never wept nor smiled. What are ye, O pallid phantoms! That haunt my troubled brain? That vanish when day approaches, And at night return again? What are ye, O pallid phantoms! But the statues without breath, That stand on the bridge overarching The silent river of death?
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)
Go to the general single-text view
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]5. Delia
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 thy remembrance. Now the hour of rest Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling; it is best.
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), "Delia", appears in Kéramos and Other Poems, first published 1878
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Dolce come l'aroma tenero che rimane", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
6. 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 breath'd 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 a song? Long, long afterward in an oak I found the Arrow still unbroke; And the Song from begining to end I found again in the heart of a friend.
Text Authorship:
- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), "The Arrow and the Song", appears in The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems, first published 1846
See other settings of this text.
Note: parodied in the anonymous poem I stuck a pin into a chair.
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]