Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO ONE WHO BIDS ME SING, by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON


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TO ONE WHO BIDS ME SING, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: You ask a 'many-winter'd' bard
Last Line: His fancies sweet -- and bitter!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dobson, Austin
Subject(s): Aging


'The straw is too old to make pipes of.' -- DON QUIXOTE.

YOU ask a 'many-winter'd' Bard
Where hides his old vocation?
I'll give -- the answer is not hard --
A classic explanation.

'Immortal' though he be, he still,
Tithonus-like, grows older,
While she, his Muse of Pindus Hill,
Still bares a youthful shoulder.

Could that too-sprightly Nymph but leave
Her ageless grace and beauty,
They might, betwixt them both, achieve
A hymn de Senectute;

But She -- She can't grow gray; and so,
Her slave, whose hairs are falling,
Must e'en his Doric flute forgo,
And seek some graver calling, --

Not ill-content to stand aside,
To yield to minstrels fitter
His singing-robes, his singing-pride,
His fancies sweet -- and bitter!





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