Arrows and Songs

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air

It fell On the ground

I don’t know where it is

Because it flies so fast

My eyesight can’t keep up with its flight

I sang into the air A song

It fell to the ground

I don’t know where it is

Because who has such sharp eyesight

Can follow it The Flying of Song

A long time later

I found the arrow on an oak tree

It was not broken

And the arrow Song

From beginning to end

I also found it hidden in the heart of a friend

Original text:

THE ARROW AND THE SONG< /p>

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend

Longfellow (1807 ~1882)

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

American poet. Born on February 22, 1807 in a lawyer's family in Maine, and died on March 24, 1882 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Studied at Beaudoin College, where he was a classmate of N. Hawthorne. After graduating in 1825, he traveled to Europe and studied French, Italian, Spanish, German and other languages ??and literature. He began teaching at Harvard University in 1836, devoted himself to reviewing European romantic literature, and became an important figure in the cultural and ideological center of New England. His early poems include "Night Song", "Songs and Others", "Brugge Bell Tower and Others", "Seaside and Fireside", etc. The poem style is simple, vivid, optimistic and uplifting, and has been praised and recited at home and abroad. His main works are three long narrative poems, or popular epics: "Evangelion", "The Song of Hiawatha" and "The Proposal of Miles Standish". They are all based on folk tales and have an ancient style. Among them, "The Song of Hiawatha" was the first carefully rewritten Indian epic in the history of American literature, and it was very popular for a while. His wife unfortunately passed away in 1861. In order to get rid of the pain, he translated Dante's "Divine Comedy" and wrote 6 sonnets. Influenced by Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", he published "Tale of the Roadhouse" in 1863, telling early American folklore and revolutionary stories. Longfellow received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge in his later years and was known as a great national poet at home.