What hope is here for modern rhyme To him who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshortened in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden's locks: Or when a thousand moons shall wane A man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long-forgotten mind. But what of that? My darkened ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GREAT HUNT by CARL SANDBURG THE WHITE RABBIT by KAREN SWENSON WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S ESSAYS by MATTHEW ARNOLD LIGHT [AND LOVE] by FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON YOUR MISSION by ELLEN M. HUNTINGTON GATES SONNET: 109 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE |