journal-05/22/99

05/22/99

Ok, I've officially killed 3 flies on my wall tonight. That's what I get for keeping the windows open, I s'pose.

But listen, I'm really happy right now, and I just have to share the "why." In 9th grade when Mrs. Martin started her poetry unit, she naturally heard a lot of moans and groans. Everyone was just too cool for poetry. Or so they thought. But anyway-- there was this one poem that we read that really stuck in my heart, but I forgot the name of it, and I forgot the poet's name. The only things I could remember were that it was in quatranes, and it rhymed. I remembered something about Arabs and night in the last verse.

I remember it being very-- well, poetic. Simple but eloquent.

And by the way, this is the poem that started me really writing poetry (although I did write my first poem when I was 9. Perhaps I'll share that with you sometime, if you remind me). So it was moderately important that I find out what poem and poet that faint memory belonged to.

But that's it. And when you're bugging English nerds about poetry, and that's all the information you've got-- well, the field gets narrowed to say, 400,000 poems.

Well maybe fewer than that, but you get the idea.

The idea of the poem continued to surface in my head once I got out of high school (while I was in high school, writing was there, but it wasn't a priority. It was something I did in free time. It wasn't something I made time to do...). I even contacted my old 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Martin, to see if she could recall the poem. She couldn't (not surprising, considering the poor excuses for clues I had).

But I knew I'd know the poem when I read it.

And tonight, while surfing the web, I happened upon it. A few tears escaped the corners of my eyes as I read it out loud.

And here it is...

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

(ahhhhh...)