A Little Poetry for a Cloudy Thursday

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 heartfelt lay
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not form 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 tonight 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 bendediction
That follows after the 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