Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Philip Bourke Marston (18501887)Persistent Music
L
To love her, who will never love again?
I, standing out here in the wind and rain,
With feet unsandalled, and uncovered hair,
Singing sad words to a still sadder air,
Who know not even if my song’s refrain—
“Of sorrow, sorrow! loved, oh, loved in vain!”—
May reach her where she sits and hath no care.
Yea, too, and love, and sing of love until
My music mixes with her dreams at night;
That when Death says to me, “Lie down, be still!”
She, pausing for my voice, and list’ning long,
May know its silence sadder than its song.