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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Poet and His Songs

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

AS the birds come in the Spring,

We know not from where;

As the stars come at evening

From the 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!”