Category: Poetry

I made ChatGPT make a modern version of the poem The Arrow and the Song by Hery Wadsworth Longfellow, and below is the output:

What We Leave Behind (Poem)

I struck a match against the night,
Then left before the morning light.
I never saw which hearts grew warm,
Or which were scarred by sparks’ first form.

I cast a stone into the tide;
The ripples wandered far and wide.
Some reached a shore to shape the sand;
Some stole a castle, grain by grain.

The years returned what I had thrown—
Not every seed was kindness sown.
For every gift our hands impart,
May build—or break—another heart.

I lit a lamp before the dawn,
Then walked away and carried on.
Who knows what traveller, cold and late,
Might find its glow and change their fate?

I spoke a hope I scarcely weighed,
Then watched it vanish as it strayed.
For words, once freed, refuse command;
They bloom in hearts we never planned.

Long years beyond what I could see,
A stranger came and smiled at me.
“You once gave light when mine was gone.”
The lamp burned out—its flame lived on.