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Home  »  Complete Poetical Works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  »  Songs. The Arrow and the Song


Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.

The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems

Songs. The Arrow and the Song

  • “October 16, 1845. Before church, wrote The Arrow and the Song, which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and glanced on to the paper with arrow’s speed. Literally an improvisation.”


    • 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 breathed 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 song?

    Long, long afterward, in an oak

    I found the arrow, still unbroke;

    And the song, from beginning to end,

    I found again in the heart of a friend.


    Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD