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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Birds Of Passage
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Black shadows fall
From the lindens tall,
That lift aloft their massive wall
     Against the southern sky;

And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelm
     The fields that round us lie.

But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
     And distant sounds seem near;

And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
     Through the dewy atmosphere.

I hear the beat
Of their pinions fleet,
As from the land of snow and sleet
     They seek a southern lea.

I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
     But their forms I cannot see.

Oh, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
     Come not from wings of birds.

They are the throngs
Of the poet`s songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
     The sound of winged words.

This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
     Seeking a warmer clime.

From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
     With the murmuring sound of rhyme.
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