Sundown:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The summer sun is sinking low;
Only the tree-tops redden and glow:
Only the weathercock on the spire
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;
All is in shadow below.
O beautiful, awful summer day,
What hast thou given, what taken away?
Life and death, and love and hate,
Homes made happy or desolate,
Hearts made sad or gay!
On the road of life one mile-stone more!
In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!
Like a red seal is the setting sun
On the good and the evil men have done,--
Naught can to-day restore!
Only the tree-tops redden and glow:
Only the weathercock on the spire
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;
All is in shadow below.
O beautiful, awful summer day,
What hast thou given, what taken away?
Life and death, and love and hate,
Homes made happy or desolate,
Hearts made sad or gay!
On the road of life one mile-stone more!
In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!
Like a red seal is the setting sun
On the good and the evil men have done,--
Naught can to-day restore!
I took this picture this past summer in Arizona during my family's vacation to the Grand Canyon. When I read, "O beautiful, awful summer day, what hast thou given, what taken away?" that line made me think about all of the memories of that day at the Grand Canyon. Someone else may have chosen a picture that would have fit with the scenery in the poem - one that had a church in the foreground, trees, and a red cast to the sky. However, the picture above is important to me and it makes the poem more personal - and more meaningful - to me.
1 comment:
The picture matches the poem very well. The poem depicts that scene of a sunset and it is direct comparison to the picture in the first stanza. The rest of the poem goes off into other ideas but the first stanza is the one that portrays the image of a sunset.
As i as reading the poem, I looked at the picture, stopping after every detail in the poem to see if it matched the picture and it was actually almost perfect. The sun is sitting low on the picture and brings a redish glow to the grass below. It is a beautiful poem and a beautiful image.
Post a Comment