The ceaseless rain is falling fast, <br />And yonder gilded vane, <br />Immovable for three days past, <br />Points to the misty main, <br /> <br />It drives me in upon myself <br />And to the fireside gleams, <br />To pleasant books that crowd my shelf, <br />And still more pleasant dreams, <br /> <br />I read whatever bards have sung <br />Of lands beyond the sea, <br />And the bright days when I was young <br />Come thronging back to me. <br /> <br />In fancy I can hear again <br />The Alpine torrent's roar, <br />The mule-bells on the hills of Spain, <br />The sea at Elsinore. <br /> <br />I see the convent's gleaming wall <br />Rise from its groves of pine, <br />And towers of old cathedrals tall, <br />And castles by the Rhine. <br /> <br />I journey on by park and spire, <br />Beneath centennial trees, <br />Through fields with poppies all on fire, <br />And gleams of distant seas. <br /> <br />I fear no more the dust and heat, <br />No more I feel fatigue, <br />While journeying with another's feet <br />O'er many a lengthening league. <br /> <br />Let others traverse sea and land, <br />And toil through various climes, <br />I turn the world round with my hand <br />Reading these poets' rhymes. <br /> <br />From them I learn whatever lies <br />Beneath each changing zone, <br />And see, when looking with their eyes, <br />Better than with mine own.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/travels-by-the-fireside-birds-of-passage-flight-the-fourth/
