On This Day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Daylight and Moonlight

In broad daylight and at noon

Yesterday I saw the moon

Sailing high, but faint and white

As a schoolboy's paper kite

In broad daylight, yesterday

I read a poet's mystic lay

And it seemed to me at most

As a phantom or a ghost

But at length the feverish day

Like a passion died away

And the night, serene and still

Fell on village, vale and hill

Then the moon in all her pride

Like a spirit glorified

Filled and overflowed the night

With revelations of her light

And the poet's song again

Passed like music through my brain

Night interpreted to me

All its grace and mystery

                                                                       Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

                                                         27th February 1807