Featured Poem: Holidays by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hopefully Easter has proved to be an enjoyable period for our readers, with some time set aside to reflect, relax or just to get a fill of chocolate. With the upcoming school break on the horizon, many people will still be in holiday mode for a little while to come yet, but if you don't find yourself amongst them then why not take heart from this poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which finds respite in a range of situations.

Holidays

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows;--
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;--a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow