Monday, January 21, 2008

Random Thoughts - 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.

P.S. This poem is about friendship. Very often, you would never know if your contribution to friendship has in fact been valued at the time you showed it. And it is always to your surprise that you find one day that there are actually people who have cherished that friendship which you have shown them. This is especially so in the society of today where everyone is often too busy to share many things with friends as people of the past have used to do; we can only hope that someday we can find it somewhere, that arrow in an oak, still unbroke.