Today is Poem-in-your-Pocket Day!

As we celebrate Poem in your Pocket Day during National Poetry Month, the Tea & Poetry Book Club wanted to give you a poem to not only put in your pocket, but to savor and share with other poetry lovers! The following poem "The Poets" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is our pocket poetry gift to you.

O ye dead Poets, who are living still
        Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
        And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
        Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
    Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
        With drops of anguish falling fast and red
        From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
        Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
    Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
        Have something in them so divinely sweet,
        It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
    Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
        Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
        But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets. Longfellow wrote predominantly lyric poems, known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.

(Resource: Wikipedia)

*This poem is found in public domain.