Explore "The Meeting" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
After so long an absence / At last we meet again: / Does the meeting give us pleasure, / Or does it give us pain?
The tree of life has been shaken, / And but few of us linger now, / Like the Prophet's two or three berries / In the top of the uppermost bough.
We cordially greet each other / In the old, familiar tone; / And we think, though we do not say it, / How old and gray he is grown!
We speak of a Merry Christmas / And many a Happy New Year / But each in his heart is thinking / Of those that are not here.
We speak of friends and their fortunes, / And of what they did and said, / Till the dead alone seem living, / And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish / Between the ghosts and the guests; / And a mist and shadow of sadness / Steals over our merriest jests.