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Home Poetry Beauty

Longfellow’s ‘The Arrow and the Song’ Put to Music by Gunny Markefka

September 23, 2025
in Beauty, Culture, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Music, Poetry
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Frith, William Powell; The Fair Toxophilites (English Archers, Nineteenth Century); Royal Albert Memorial Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-fair-toxophilites-english-archers-nineteenth-century-95942

Frith, William Powell; The Fair Toxophilites (English Archers, Nineteenth Century); Royal Albert Memorial Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-fair-toxophilites-english-archers-nineteenth-century-95942

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Listen to “Arrow Song” by Gunny Markefka, with lyrics from Longfellow. “Arrow Song” is from his album Arrow Songs, which features songs with lyrics from Shakespeare, Blake, Cowper, Milton, Byron, and Bulwer-Lytton. The album can be previewed and purchased here.

https://classicalpoets.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/01-Arrow-Song.mp3

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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.

.

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Comments 4

  1. Paul Freeman says:
    4 years ago

    Wow! That’s pretty darn good.

    Reply
  2. Sally Cook says:
    4 years ago

    Interesting take – the best lyricists are always poets. Thanks for joining us !

    Reply
  3. James A. Tweedie says:
    4 years ago

    Gunny,

    Nicely composed. Nicely arranged. Nicely produced. Nicely performed.
    Real nice. Really nice. Better than nice. Really, really good. And beautiful!

    Thank you for sharing this. Please share with us again. The interface of poetry and music, when joined by a skilled and inspired artist, uplifts both the words and the music–as you and your music have done with Longfellow’s poem.

    Reply
  4. Lucia Haase says:
    4 years ago

    A pleasure to read! Thank you.

    Lucia

    Reply

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