IT may be misery not to sing at all And to go silent through the brimming day. It may be sorrow never to be loved, But deeper griefs than these beset the way. To have come near to sing the perfect song And only by a half-tone lost the key, There is the potent sorrow, there the grief, The pale, sad staring of life's tragedy. To have just missed the perfect love, Not the hot passion of untempered youth, But that which lays aside its vanity And gives thee, for thy trusting worship, truth -- This, this it is to be accursed indeed; For if we mortals love, or if we sing, We count our joys not by the things we have, But by what kept us from the perfect thing. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 2. OFF ALGIERS by SARA TEASDALE EPISTLE TO JOHN LAPRAIK, AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD by ROBERT BURNS HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW; IN MEMORIAM by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON THE BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT THE WHITE COMRADE (AFTER W.H. LEATHAM'S 'THE COMRADE IN WHIRE') by ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER |