The Arrow And The Song

Handwritten copy of a Longfellow poem:

I shot an arrow into the air
It fell to earth I know not where,
For so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breath'd a Song into the air
It fell to earth, I know not where.
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of a 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.

Found in "Pierre M. Irving and Washington Irving: A Collaboration in Life and Letters" by Wayne R. Kime. Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1977.



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