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!
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POEMS BY EDWARD FITZGERALD |
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