Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
Old Song: Tis a dull sightEdward Fitzgerald (18091883)
’T
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, O sighing!
I do retire
Into an old room
Beside a bright fire:
O, pile a bright fire!
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings—
O, drearily sings!
Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
And chivalry—
Gallant chivalry!
I talk of our youth—
How ’twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!
We sing some old rhyme
That made the wood ring again
In summer time—
Sweet summer time!
Silent and snug:
Naught passes between us,
Save a brown jug—
Sometimes!
Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
So merrily—
So merrily!
Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
We kneel on the knee,
Praying together!
Till, ’mid all the gloom,
By Heaven! the bold sun
Is with me in the room
Shining, shining!
Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
And the meadows are green!
Break the old pipe in twain
And away to the meadows,
The meadows again!