This week’s choice is “The Day Is Done” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and I have chosen it because it speaks of a sensation common to us all.
Then read from the treasured volume
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
Poem 401. The Day Is Done
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 and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from 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 to-night 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 benediction
That follows after 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.
Longfellow conjures up the feelings we may experience at the end of a long and busy day and proposes the answer: something simple and easy to enjoy, nothing too intellectually challenging.
I think we have all had that feeling—a need to unwind by watching something mindless on the television or listening to a favourite song or piece of music that demands no thought.
The first three stanzas remind us of the weariness and ennui we may feel as the day closes after strenuous effort: “a feeling of sadness comes o’er me/That my soul cannot resist”. This melancholy feeling resembles sorrow, he says, only distantly: as much as a light mist is like a shower of rain.
To shake this weariness, he proposes that someone reads him “Some simple and heartfelt lay”, hoping that it may banish the negative mood. “The grand old masters” and “the bards sublime”, despite their many excellences, are not his choice—he does not want something he has to think about, or anything that reminds him of the day’s travails, just something that will lull him to rest.
“Read from some humbler poet” he commands, needing something soothing and agreeable rather than a work of “mighty thoughts”—a poet who suffered “long days of labor,/And nights devoid of ease” but who nonetheless felt the joy of the “wonderful melodies” which they set down for others to delight in.
These are the poems that Longfellow wishes to hear—verses that will soothe and pacify the relentless stresses of life. The pleasure of the chosen poem is intensified by its rendition, the treasured lines enhanced by “The beauty of thy voice”. Only then will his cares, accumulated throughout the day, vanish away just as the desert Arabs were supposed to be able to do by Longfellow’s contemporaries.
This is a lovely poem that I found a couple of weeks ago when browsing through a poetry website in search of a poem on another topic. I think it is an admirable evocation of the weariness we all feel after a hard day’s work, and Longfellow expresses so well the desire to listen to something anodyne that will soothe and calm our emotions, rather than a work that will remind us of things done badly or well.
He had an excellent turn of phrase: “the darkness/Falls from the wings of Night” and his simile expressing his sensations via a comparison between mist and rain. He describes the “grand old masters” saying that their “footsteps echo/Through the corridors of Time”, which is a nice way of affirming his respect for them.
The next two stanzas are beautiful: we see the “humbler poet” that Longfellow would hear from, a person “Whose songs gushed from his heart” like summer rain or unexpected tears. I love the idea of someone who despite the hard labour of their employment nonetheless is blessed with “the music of wonderful melodies”.
We all have something that helps us to unwind at the end of a day, whether we are a “humbler poet” or not and Longfellow’s description of songs that “have power to quiet/The restless pulse of care” is an accurate characterisation of this.
I am fortunate to possess many treasured volumes and I enjoy selecting and reading the poems of my choice. May your nights be filled with music and the cares that infest your day be banished by those things that help you to forget them.
There is a rather good performance of the poem by Alexander Scourby on Tim Gracyk’s YouTube channel.