LET me write you a rune of a rhyme, Dave Field, For the sake of the past we knew, When we were vagrants along the road, Yet glad as the skies were blue; When we struck hands, as in alien lands Old friend to old friend is revealed, And each hears a tongue that he understands And a laugh that he loves, Dave Field. Ho! let me chant you a stave, Dave Field, Of those indolent days of ours, With our chairs atilt at the wayside inn Or our backs in the woodland flowers; With your pipe alit, and the breath of it Like a nimbus about your head, While I sipped, like a monk, of your winy wit, With my matins all unsaid. Let me drone you a dream of the world, Dave Field, And the glory it held for us -- You with your pencil-and-canvas dreams, And I with my pencil thus; Yet with never a thought of the prize we sought, Being at best but a pain, As we looked from the heights and our blurred eyes caught The scenes of our youth again. Oh, let me sing you a song, Dave Field, Jolly and hale, but yet With a quaver of pathos along the lines, And the throb of a vain regret; -- A sigh for the dawn long dead and gone, But a laugh for the dawn concealed, As bravely a while we still toil on Toward the topmost heights, Dave Field. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SMOTHERED FIRES by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON CHAMBER MUSIC: 14 by JAMES JOYCE INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE A TRIBUTE OF GRASSES by HAMLIN GARLAND THE AUTHOR'S EPITAPH, MADE BY HIMSELF by WALTER RALEIGH THE ELDER'S WARNING; A LAY OF THE CONVOCATION by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN VERSES WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF AN OLD VISITATION COPY OF ARMS by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |