Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONG by AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE

First Line: SING THE OLD SONG, AMID THE SOUNDS DISPERSING

SING the old song, amid the sounds dispersing
That burden treasured in your hearts too long;
Sing it with voice low breathed, but never name her.
She will not hear you, in her turrets nursing
High thoughts, too high to mate with mortal song-
Bend o'er her, gentle Heaven, but do not claim her!
In twilight caves, and secret lonelinesses,
She shades the bloom of her unearthly days;
And the soft winds alone have power to woo her:
Far off we catch the dark gleam of her tresses;
And wild birds haunt the wood- walks where she strays,
Intelligible music warbling to her.
That Spirit charged to follow and defend her,
He also, doubtless, suffers this love- pain;
And she perhaps is sad, hearing his sighing:
And yet that face is not so sad as tender;
Like some sweet singer's when her sweetest strain
From the heaved heart is gradually dying!




Home: PoetryExplorer.net