Fi

“Endymion

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stayed so long?”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ballads and Other Poems

“In the bitter waves of woe, 
Beaten and tossed about 
By the sullen winds that blow 
From the desolate shores of doubt,­­ 

When the anchors that faith had cast 
Are dragging in the gale, 
I am quietly holding fast 
To the things that cannot fail: 

In the darkest night of the year, 
When the stars have all gone out,  That courage is better than fear,  That faith is truer than doubt; 

And fierce though the fiends may fight,  And long though the angels hide, 
I know that Truth and Right 
Have the universe on their side; 

And somewhere, beyond the stars, 
Is a Love that is better than fate; 
When the night unlocks her bars 
I shall see Him, and I will wait”
― Washington Gladden