Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — The Herons of Elmwood

Warm and still is the summer night,        &nbsp As here by the river's brink I wander; White overhead are the stars, and white        &nbsp The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder. Silent are all the sounds of day;        &nbsp Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets, And the cry of the herons winging their way        &nbsp O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets. Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass        &nbsp To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes, Sing him the song of the green morass;        &nbsp And the tides that water the reeds and rushes. Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,        &nbsp And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking; For only a sound of lament we discern,        &nbsp And cannot interpret the words you are speaking. Sing of the air, and the wild delight        &nbsp Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight        &nbsp Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you. Of the landscape lying so far below,        &nbsp With its towns and rivers and desert places; And the splendor of light above, and the glow        &nbsp Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,        &nbsp Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,        &nbsp And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better. Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,        &nbsp Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, Some one hath lingered to meditate,        &nbsp And send him unseen this friendly greeting; That many another hath done the same,        &nbsp Though not by a sound was the silence broken; The surest pledge of a deathless name        &nbsp Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.