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Home  »  The English Poets  »  ‘Bright is the Ring of Words’

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

‘Bright is the Ring of Words’

BRIGHT is the ring of words

When the right man rings them,

Fair the fall of songs

When the singer sings them.

Still they are carolled and said—

On wings they are carried—

After the singer is dead

And the maker buried.

Low as the singer lies

In the field of heather,

Songs of his fashion bring

The swains together.

And when the west is red

With the sunset embers,

The lover lingers and sings

And the maid remembers.