Old Song
Edward FitzGerald
1809 to 1883
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Tis a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, O sighing!
When such a time cometh
do retire
Into an old room
Beside a fire:
O, pile a bright fire!
And there sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings—
O, drearily sings!
never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
all to be seen
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,
a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
And chivalry—
Gallant chivalry!
Then with an old friend
talk of our youth—
How ’twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth:
But gladsome, gladsome!
Or, to get merry,
We sing some old rhyme
That made the ring again
In summer time—
Sweet summer time!
Then go we smoking,
Silent and snug:
Naught between us,
Save a brown jug—
Sometimes!
sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye,
the two old friends
So merrily—
So merrily!
And ere to bed
Go we, go we,
on the ashes
We kneel on the knee,
Praying together!
Thus, then, live I
Till, ’mid the gloom,
By Heaven! the bold sun
Is me in the room
Shining, shining!
Then the part,
Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
And the meadows are green!
I jump up like mad,
Break the old pipe in twain,
And away the meadows,
The meadows again!