| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Old Song: ‘’Tis a dull sight’ | | By Edward Fitzgerald (1809–1883) |
| | | ’TIS a dull sight | |
| To see the year dying, | |
| When winter winds | |
| Set the yellow wood sighing: | |
| Sighing, O sighing! | 5 |
| |
| When such a time cometh | |
| I do retire | |
| Into an old room | |
| Beside a bright fire: | |
| O, pile a bright fire! | 10 |
| |
| And there I sit | |
| Reading old things, | |
| Of knights and lorn damsels, | |
| While the wind sings— | |
| O, drearily sings! | 15 |
| |
| I never look out | |
| Nor attend to the blast; | |
| For all to be seen | |
| Is the leaves falling fast: | |
| Falling, falling! | 20 |
| |
| But close at the hearth, | |
| Like a cricket, sit I, | |
| Reading of summer | |
| And chivalry— | |
| Gallant chivalry! | 25 |
| |
| Then with an old friend | |
| I talk of our youth— | |
| How ’twas gladsome, but often | |
| Foolish, forsooth: | |
| But gladsome, gladsome! | 30 |
| |
| Or, to get merry, | |
| We sing some old rhyme | |
| That made the wood ring again | |
| In summer time— | |
| Sweet summer time! | 35 |
| |
| Then go we smoking, | |
| Silent and snug: | |
| Naught passes between us, | |
| Save a brown jug— | |
| Sometimes! | 40 |
| |
| And sometimes a tear | |
| Will rise in each eye, | |
| Seeing the two old friends | |
| So merrily— | |
| So merrily! | 45 |
| |
| And ere to bed | |
| Go we, go we, | |
| Down on the ashes | |
| We kneel on the knee, | |
| Praying together! | 50 |
| |
| Thus, then, live I | |
| Till, ’mid all the gloom, | |
| By Heaven! the bold sun | |
| Is with me in the room | |
| Shining, shining! | 55 |
| |
| Then the clouds part, | |
| Swallows soaring between; | |
| The spring is alive, | |
| And the meadows are green! | |
| |
| I jump up like mad, | 60 |
| Break the old pipe in twain | |
| And away to the meadows, | |
| The meadows again! | | | | |
|
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