Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PIPER, by CICELY FOX SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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THE PIPER, by             Poet's Biography
First Line: I will not lift the door-latch, I will not step in
Last Line: I will catch at your heart-strings in the dark of the night.


I WILL not lift the door-latch, I will not step in
From the dark fields and the starlight and the bent and whin:
All about the stone gables, in the dusk alone
You shall hear my pipe playing by your own hearth-stone.

I have no joy of your banquets nor your lighted halls:
I flute not for your dancing at gay routs and balls.
When the last guest has departed, and the lights have died,
Come I with my shrill piping up the lone hillside.

I bring no sheaf of ballads of wars and dead wrongs:
All across the wide world God has taught me my songs,—
Old tunes and unwritten, wrought in far years,
In a strange tongue and tender, with a burden of tears.

O hearts that are restless, O hearts that repine,
Knowledge of all sorrows and of all dreams is mine.
With a song of dim longing and of lost delight
I will catch at your heart-strings in the dark of the night.





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