O TONGUES of the Past, be still! Are the days not over and gone? The joys have perished that were so sweet, But the sorrow still lives on. I have sealed the graves of my hopes; I have carried the pall of love: Let the pains and pangs be buried as deep, And the grass be as green above! But the ghosts of the dead arise: They come when the board is spread; They poison the wine of the banquet cups With the mould their lips have shed. The pulse of the bacchant blood May throb in the ivy wreath, But the berries are plucked from the nightshade bough That grows in the gardens of Death. I sleep with joy at my heart, Warm as a new-made bride; But a vampire comes to suck her blood, And I wake with a corpse at my side. O ghosts, I have given to you The bliss of the faded years; The sweat of my brow, the blood of my heart, And manhood's terrible tears! Take them, and be content: I have nothing more to give: My soul is chilled in the house of Death, And 't is time that I should live. Take them, and let me be: Lie still in the churchyard mould, Nor chase from my heart each new delight With the phantom of the old! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CLARE'S DRAGOONS by THOMAS OSBORNE DAVIS SONNET (ON AN OLD BOOK WITH UNCUT LEAVES) by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE HAUNTED OAK by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE IRISH PEASANT TO HIS MISTRESS by THOMAS MOORE VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1878 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI AN ELEGIE, OR FRIENDS PASSION, FOR HIS ASTROPHILL by MATTHEW ROYDEN UNDERWOODS: BOOK 1: 38 by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE ONE WHITE ROSE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH BRUCE: HOW AYMER DE VALENCE, AND JOHN OF LORN CHASED THE BRUCE ... by JOHN BARBOUR |