Classic and Contemporary Poetry
BALLAD, by OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN Poet's Biography First Line: When I with death have gone on quest Last Line: Though I who sang forgotten be. Alternate Author Name(s): Burke, Fielding Subject(s): Death; Dead, The | ||||||||
WHEN I with Death have gone on quest, And grief is mellowed in your breast; When you do nothing fret If jest come gently in with tea, And Purr is stroked for want of me; When thought robust bestirs your mind, And with a candid start you find The world must move To living love And you forthright on travel set; I do not ask you strive to keep Awake the woe that winks for sleep, Or swell the lessening tear; I do not ask; dear to me still May be the eyes regret would fill; And, sooth, in vain I'd Nature sue To go a little out for you; But whether 'tis Or that or this Is from the matter there and here. Forget the kisses dying not Till each a thousand more begot; Such easy progeny You with small trouble still may have; (Though women die, love has no grave;) Forget the quaint, the nest-born ways, And ponder things more to my praise, That I may long Be worth a song Though deep in tongueless clay I be. Admit my eye, than yours less keen, Still knew a bead of Hippocrene From baser bubbles bright; My ear could catch, or short or long, The echo of true-hammered song; And many a book we journeyed through; Some turned us home again, 'tis true, (Not all who pen Are more than men,) And some, like stars, outwore the night. Say I could break a lance with Fate, Took half, at least, my troubles straight, (Let women have their boast;) Homed well with chance, and passing where The gods kept house would take a chair, Perchance at ease, with naught ado, With Jove would toss a quip or two; The nectar stale, A mug of ale On goodly earth would serve a toast. And if I left thee by a tile Where thou didst choose to dream, the while I sought a farther mead, Or clomb a ridge for flowers that wore Of earth the less, of stars the more, I hastened back, confess of me, To lay me treasure on the knee; Nor didst thou hear Of stone or brere, Or how my hidden feet did bled. And in the piping season when The whole round world takes heart again To rise and dance with Spring; When robin drives the snow-wind home, And sweetened is the warmed loam, When deeper root the violets, And every bud its fear forgets With upward glance For lovers' chance In Venus' dear and fateful ring; Let not a thought of my cold bed Bechill thy warm heart beating red, And thy new ardours dim; But if, good hap, you rove where I Beneath the twinkling moss then lie, Be glad to see me decked so gay, (Spring's the best handmaid without pay,) I like things new, In season too, And fain must smile to be so trim. Then hie thee to some bonny brake Another mate to woo and take, And as thy soul to love. Rise with the dew, stay not the noon, What's good cannot be found too soon, The wind will not be always south, Nor like a rose is every mouth, Time's quick to press, Do thou no less, And may the night thy wisdom prove. And as all love doth live again In great or small that loved hath been, Keep this sole troth with me, Forget my name, my form, my face, But meet me still in every place, Since we are what we love, and I Loved everything beneath the sky. So may I long Be worth a song, Though I who sang forgotten be. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND THE PATH-FLOWER by OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN |
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