THIS song I wrote -- ah me, how long ago! When up the stair of Heaven and down again (For even then I could not long remain), With happy feet I used to come and go. This ode I sang beneath a laurel-bough Where I had sought for Truth among the dead; This little verse (and still the page is red), To soothe some easier pang forgotten now. I took the dew of lilies grown apart; The scanty wine of amphoras; and, bright And clear, the blood that flows from trivial scars; But with the bitter ink of mine own heart I have not written and I must not write, Let rust and acid dim the eternal stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR by MARIANNE MOORE THE THANKSGIVING IN BOSTON HARBOR [JUNE 12, 1630] by HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH MOTLEY: THE GHOST by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE EIGHT O'CLOCK by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN RECUERDO by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY CABOOSE THOUGHTS by CARL SANDBURG THE DYING SWAN by ALFRED TENNYSON SESTET SENT TO A FRIEND WITH A VOLUME OF TENNYSON by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |