Old Song

TIS 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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