OLD SONGS by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON

THERE is many a simple song one hears,
To an outworn tune, that starts the tears;
Not for itself -- for the buried years.

Perchance 'twas heard in the days of youth,
When breath was buoyant and words were truth;
When joys were peddled at Life's gay booth.

Or maybe it sounded along a lane
Where She walked with you -- and now again
You catch Love's cadence, Love's old sweet pain.

Or else it stole through a room where lay
A dear one dying, and seemed to say:
"Love and death, they shall pass away."

It rises out of the Long Ago,
And that is the reason it shakes you so
With pain and passion and buried woe.

There is many a simple song that brings
From deeps of living, on viewless wings,
The tender magic of bygone things.

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