OLD SONG

by: Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883)

      'IS a dull sight
      To see the year dying,
      When winter winds
      Set the yellow wood sighing:
      Sighing, O sighing!
       
      When such a time cometh
      I do retire
      Into an old room
      Beside a bright fire:
      O, pile a bright fire!
       
      And there I sit
      Reading old things,
      Of knights and lorn damsels,
      While the wind sings--
      O, drearily sings!
       
      I never look out
      Nor attend to the blast;
      For all to be seen
      Is the leaves falling fast:
      Falling, falling!
       
      But close at the hearth,
      Like a cricket, sit I,
      Reading of summer
      And chivalry--
      Gallant chivalry!
       
      Then with an old friend
      I talk of our youth--
      How 'twas gladsome, but often
      Foolish, forsooth:
      But gladsome, gladsome!
       
      Or, to get merry,
      We sing some old rhyme
      That made the wood ring again
      In summer time--
      Sweet summer time!
       
      Then go we smoking,
      Silent and snug:
      Naught passes between us,
      Save a brown jug--
      Sometimes!
       
      And sometimes a tear
      Will rise in each eye,
      Seeing the two old friends
      So merrily--
      So merrily!
       
      And ere to bed
      Go we, go we,
      Down on the ashes
      We kneel on the knee,
      Praying together!
       
      Thus, then, live I
      Till, 'mid all the gloom,
      By Heaven! the bold sun
      Is with me in the room
      Shining, shining!
       
      Then the clouds part,
      Swallows soaring between;
      The spring is alive,
      And the meadows are green!
       
      I jump up like mad,
      Break the old pipe in twain,
      And away to the meadows,
      The meadows again!

MORE POEMS BY EDWARD FITZGERALD

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