Lyric Poem · Nature
Holidays
1The holiest of all holidays are those
2Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
3The secret anniversaries of the heart,
4When the full river of feeling overflows; —
5The happy days unclouded to their close;
6The sudden joys that out of darkness start
7As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
8Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
9White as the gleam of a receding sail,
10White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
11White as the whitest lily on a stream,
12These tender memories are; — a fairy tale
13Of some enchanted land we know not where,
14But lovely as a landscape in a dream.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Holidays” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — quilloak.com/poems/holidays
Quick facts
- Poem
- Holidays
- Poet
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Love, Dreams & Sleep
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- End rhyme
- ABBCDBBAEFGEFG.
- Line length
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
- Source record
- PoetryDBHolidays by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 c15860a6612f6440…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.