Or, On Holding the
Sky On One’s Shoulders
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow

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Editorial Note:
The following
poem is
reproduced from
“The Works of Henry
Wadsworth
Longfellow”, The Wordsworth
Poetry Library,
U.K., 1994, 886 pp., p. 320.
From one day to
another, as from one lifetime
to the next,
there is a sense of incompleteness
about life, and
this is why evolution goes on. No
cycle is
complete in itself. Every round leaves
things and
tasks undone, and errors to be corrected.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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Labor with what
zeal we will,
Something
still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the
rising of the sun.
By the bedside, on the stair,
At the
threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
Like a
mendicant it waits;
Waits, and will not go away;
Waits, and
will not be gainsaid;
By the cares of yesterday
Each to-day is
heavier made;
Till at length the burden seems
Greater than
our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams,
Pressing on us
everywhere.
And we stand from day to day,
Like the
dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
On their
shoulders held the sky.
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Henry W. Longfellow was born on 27 February 1807 and
lived until 24 March 1882.
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