Having successfully memorised “The Cross of Snow” I’ve chosen another Longfellow sonnet for my second poem-of-the-week.

Into the darkness and the hush of night
-Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,
-And with it fade the phantoms of the day,
-The ghosts of men and things, that haunt the light.
The crowd, the clamour, the pursuit, the flight,
-The unprofitable splendour and display,
-The agitations, and the cares that prey
-Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.
The better life begins; the world no more
-Molests us; all its records we erase.
-From the dull common-place book of our lives.
That like a palimpsest is written o’er
-With trivial incidents of time and place,
-And lo! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives.

palimpsest : A piece of parchment or papyrus that has been written on, nearly completely erased and written on again

The imagery of the day’s cares sinking away simultaneously with the landscape is particularly appealing to me. I also enjoy the phrases, ‘the better life’ and ‘the ideal, hidden beneath’, which, to my mind, means your truest self-the self you are when not trying to be who we’re expected to be during the day with colleagues and the general public.