To an Old Danish Song-Book
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Welcome, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.
The ungrateful world
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,
Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met thee.
There are marks of age,
There are thumb-marks on thy margin,
Made by hands that clasped thee rudely,
At the alehouse.
Soiled and dull thou art;
Yellow are thy time-worn pages,
As the russet, rain-molested
Leaves of autumn.
Thou art stained with wine
Scattered from hilarious goblets,
As the leaves with the libations
Of Olympus.
Yet dost thou recall
Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,--
When I paused to hear
The old ballad of King Christian
Shouted from suburban taverns
In the twilight.
Thou recallest bards,
Who in solitary chambers,
And with hearts by passion wasted,
Wrote thy pages.
Thou recallest homes
Where thy songs of love and friendship
Made the gloomy Northern winter
Bright as summer.
Once some ancient Scald,
In his bleak, ancestral Iceland,
Chanted staves of these old ballads
To the Vikings.
Once in Elsinore,
At the court of old King Hamlet
Yorick and his boon companions
Sang these ditties.
Once Prince Frederick's Guard
Sang them in their smoky barracks;--
Suddenly the English cannon
Joined the chorus!
Peasants in the field,
Sailors on the roaring ocean,
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics,
All have sung them.
Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless!
Yet at least by one warm fireside
Art thou welcome.
And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys,
So thy twittering songs shall nestle
In my bosom,--
Quiet, close, and warm,
Sheltered from all molestation,
And recalling by their voices
Youth and travel.
LOVE POEMS WANTED
:
Click here
if you would like to submit your
love poems
for possible inclusion on this site. We update our web site once per month. We will not post poems that are sexuallyexplicit.
Here Are Our Top Love Poems...
Love Poems 1
I Would Live in Your Love
by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Love Poems 2
Sonnet From the Portuguese V
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)
Love Poems 3
The Bungler
by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Love Poems 4
Blue and White
by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)
Love Poems 5
Desideria
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Love Poems 6
The Taxi
by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Love Poems 7
Daffodils
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Love Poems 8
Song
by Sir William Watson (1858-1935)
Love Poems 9
To a Butterfly
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Love Poems 10
Sonnet From the Portuguese V
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)
Love Poems 11
She Tells Her Love by Robert Ranke Graves
Love Poems 12
It's all I have to bring to-day by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 13
I Never Lost As Much by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 14
Heart, We Will Forget Him by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 15
O Mistress Mine by William Shakespeare
Love Poems 16
The Rose in the Deeps of his Heart by William Butler Yeats
Love Poems 17
Love by Robert Browning
Love Poems 18
My Pretty Rose Tree by William Blake
Love Poems 19
I Should Not Dare by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 20
One Day I Wrote Her Name by Edmund Spenser
Love Poems 21
Tell me not, Sweet, by Richard Lovelace
Love Poems 22
The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love Poems 23
The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love Poems 24
Hope is a Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 25
We Are Seven by William Wordsworth
Love Poems 26
Mag by Carl Sandburg
Love Poems 27
Ebb by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love Poems 28
I Sing by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 29
For Each Ecstatic Instant by Emily Dickinson
Love Poems 30
Love Not Me by John Wilbye
Love Poems 31
Mild Is The Parting Year by Walter Savage Landor