Holidays by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 25, 2015   Holidays   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holiest of all holidays are those     Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;     The secret anniversaries of the heart,     When the full river of feeling overflows;— The happy days unclouded to their close;     The sudden joys that out of darkness start     As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart     Like swallows singing down each wind that blows! White as the gleam of a receding sail,     White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,     White as the whitest lily on a stream, These tender memories are;— a Fairy Tale     Of some enchanted land we know not where,     But lovely as a landscape in a dream.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Holidays” was published in Longfellow’s book Kéramos, and other poems (Houghton, Osgood & Company, 1878).   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, on February 27, 1807. His books include The Song of Hiawatha (Boston, Ticknor & Fields, 1856) and Voices of the Night (Cambridge, J. Owen, 1839). He died on March 24, 1882, at the age of seventy-five. Poetry by Longfellow   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems & Other Writings (Library of America, 2000) "Christmas Trees" by Robert Frost "The Oxen" by Thomas Hardy "Noel" by Anne Porter Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038