Memorizing a poem a week and doing crosswords are two ways to keep your mind active. I’m rubbish at crosswords but I enjoy poetry. This week’s is Longfellow’s The Cross of Snow.

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face-the face of one long dead-
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow on its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

I know this one is a bit bleak, but the imagery is so vivid-the language so evocative, that I couldn’t resist.