Imagine a piece of furniture that’s kept its lively eyes open in the same house for most of Maine’s statehood. Such is the magnetism of Henry Longfellow’s Rainy Day desk in the Wadsworth-Longfellow House at 489 Congress Street. “It was at this desk that Longfellow wrote ‘The Rainy Day’ poem,” says John Babin of Maine Historical Society. “It’s mahogany and mahogany veneer.” Gazing at the garden through the window, “He would have seen the wall and the vine both mentioned in the poem.”

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