THIS song I wrote -- ah me, how long ago! When up the stair of Heaven and down again (For even then I could not long remain), With happy feet I used to come and go. This ode I sang beneath a laurel-bough Where I had sought for Truth among the dead; This little verse (and still the page is red), To soothe some easier pang forgotten now. I took the dew of lilies grown apart; The scanty wine of amphoras; and, bright And clear, the blood that flows from trivial scars; But with the bitter ink of mine own heart I have not written and I must not write, Let rust and acid dim the eternal stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND: 3. GUDRIDA'S PROPHECY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL MR. FLOOD'S PARTY by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON BREAK, BREAK, BREAK by ALFRED TENNYSON HAREBELLS by ANNE MILLAY BREMER SPRING SONG IN THE CITY by ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN GLIMPSES OF CHILDHOOD: 2. IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON |