Full Circle

I have known this poem for a while, but it touched me in a special way this morning. I love the coupling of the arrow and the song - something tangible and something of the soul, and the magic of the narrator finding both again at the end of the tale. It suggests that things in life that may seem ephemeral are actually connected to a bigger picture, where you eventually come full circle.

It is a hopeful poem.

The Arrow and the Song

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of 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.