Lyric Poem · Friendship
The Arrow and the Song
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1845
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.
Henry W. Longfellow
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Arrow and the Song” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — quilloak.com/poems/the-arrow-and-the-song
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Arrow and the Song
- Poet
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Published
- 1845
- Length
- 13 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Friendship, Short
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
- 13 lines · 3 stanzas of 4–5 lines
- End rhyme
- AABB in 67% of the stanzas — couplets. The remaining stanzas vary, often through slant rhyme.
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
- Refrain
- “It fell to earth, I knew not where;”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
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 cited edition and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
- Source record
- WikisourceThe Arrow and the Song by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, Wikisource transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1845
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 2db702fb4b477b2f…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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