'Nunc plaudite!' the Student cried, <br />When he had finished; 'now applaud, <br />As Roman actors used to say <br />At the conclusion of a play;? <br />And rose, and spread his hands abroad, <br />And smiling bowed from side to side, <br />As one who bears the palm away. <br />And generous was the applause and loud, <br />But less for him than for the sun, <br /> <br />That even as the tale was done <br />Burst from its canopy of cloud, <br />And lit the landscape with the blaze <br />Of afternoon on autumn days, <br />And filled the room with light, and made <br />The fire of logs a painted shade. <br /> <br />A sudden wind from out the west <br />Blew all its trumpets loud and shrill; <br />The windows rattled with the blast, <br />The oak-trees shouted as it passed, <br />And straight, as if by fear possessed, <br />The cloud encampment on the hill <br />Broke up, and fluttering flag and tent <br />Vanished into the firmament, <br />And down the valley fled amain <br />The rear of the retreating rain. <br /> <br />Only far up in the blue sky <br />A mass of clouds, like drifted snow <br />Suffused with a faint Alpine glow, <br />Was heaped together, vast and high, <br />On which a shattered rainbow hung, <br />Not rising like the ruined arch <br />Of some aerial aqueduct, <br />But like a roseate garland plucked <br />From an Olympian god, and flung <br />Aside in his triumphal march. <br /> <br />Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom, <br />Like birds escaping from a snare, <br />Like school-boys at the hour of play, <br />All left at once the pent-up room, <br />And rushed into the open air; <br />And no more tales were told that day.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tales-of-a-wayside-inn-part-2-finale/
