How beautiful it was, that one bright day <br />In the long week of rain! <br />Though all its splendor could not chase away <br />The omnipresent pain. <br /> <br />The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, <br />And the great elms o'erhead <br />Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms <br />Shot through with golden thread. <br /> <br />Across the meadows, by the gray old manse, <br />The historic river flowed: <br />I was as one who wanders in a trance, <br />Unconscious of his road. <br /> <br />The faces of familiar friends seemed strange; <br />Their voices I could hear, <br />And yet the words they uttered seemed to change <br />Their meaning to my ear. <br /> <br />For the one face I looked for was not there, <br />The one low voice was mute; <br />Only an unseen presence filled the air, <br />And baffled my pursuit. <br /> <br />Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream <br />Dimly my thought defines; <br />I only see--a dream within a dream-- <br />The hill-top hearsed with pines. <br /> <br />I only hear above his place of rest <br />Their tender undertone, <br />The infinite longings of a troubled breast, <br />The voice so like his own. <br /> <br />There in seclusion and remote from men <br />The wizard hand lies cold, <br />Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, <br />And left the tale half told. <br /> <br />Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, <br />And the lost clew regain? <br />The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower <br />Unfinished must remain!<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/flower-de-luce-hawthorne/
