Explore "The Poet and his Songs" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As the birds come in the Spring, / We know not from where; / As the stars come at evening / From depths of the air;
As the rain comes from the cloud, / And the brook from the ground; / As suddenly, low or loud, / Out of silence a sound;
As the grape comes to the vine, / The fruit to the tree; / As the wind comes to the pine, / And the tide to the sea;
As come the white sails of ships / O'er the ocean's verge; / As comes the smile to the lips, / The foam to the surge;
So come to the Poet his songs, / All hitherward blown / From the misty realm, that belongs / To the vast unknown.
His, and not his, are the lays / He sings; and their fame / Is his, and not his; and the praise / And the pride of a name.
For voices pursue him by day, / And haunt him by night, / And he listens, and needs must obey, / When the Angel says: "Write! "