Canto LXXV
What hope is here for modern rhymeTo him, who turns a musing eyeOn songs, and deeds, and lives, that lieForeshorten’d in the tract of time?
These mortal lullabies of painMay bind a book, may line a box,May serve to curl a maiden’s locks;Or when a thousand moons shall wane
A man upon a stall may find,And, passing, turn the page that tellsA grief—then changed to something else,Sung by a long forgotten mind.
But what of that? My darken’d waysShall ring with music all the same;To breathe my loss is more than fame,To utter love more sweet than praise.