Henry David Thoreau
Mist
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the dasied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers,
Bear only purfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men’s fields!
Written at the old home in Portland THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains,and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains,and the wind is never weary; My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past, But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, And the days are dark and dreary. Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Mists and Rains
by Charles Baudelaire
O ends of autumn, winters, springtimes deep in mud,
Seasons of drowsiness, — my love and gratitude
I give you, that have wrapped with mist my heart and brain
As with a shroud, and shut them in a tomb of rain.
In this wide land when coldly blows the bleak south-west
And weathervanes at night grow hoarse on the house-crest,
Better than in the time when green things bud and grow
My mounting soul spreads wide its black wings of a crow.
The heart filled up with gloom, and to the falling sleet
Long since accustomed, finds no other thing more sweet —
O dismal seasons, queens of our sad climate crowned —
Than to remain always in your pale shadows drowned;
(Unless it be, some dark night, kissing an unseen head,
To rock one’s pain to sleep upon a hazardous bed.)
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