The Poetical Works of John Payne Definitive Edition in Two Volumes |
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DOUBLE BALLAD
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 | The Poetical Works of John Payne |  |
DOUBLE BALLAD
OF THE SINGERS OF THE TIME.
WHY are our songs like the moan of the main,
When the wild winds buffet it to and fro,
(Our brothers ask us again and again)
A weary burden of hopes laid low?
Have birds left singing or flowers to blow?
Is Life cast down from its fair estate?
This I answer them—nothing mo'—
Songs and singers are out of date.
When the wild winds buffet it to and fro,
(Our brothers ask us again and again)
A weary burden of hopes laid low?
Have birds left singing or flowers to blow?
Is Life cast down from its fair estate?
This I answer them—nothing mo'—
Songs and singers are out of date.
What shall we sing of? Our hearts are fain,
Our bosoms burn with a sterile glow.
Shall we sing of the sordid strife for gain,
For shameful honour, for wealth and woe,
Hunger and luxury,—weeds that throw
Up from one seeding their flowers of hate?
Can we tune our lutes to these themes? Ah no!
Songs and singers are out of date.
Our bosoms burn with a sterile glow.
Shall we sing of the sordid strife for gain,
For shameful honour, for wealth and woe,
Hunger and luxury,—weeds that throw
Up from one seeding their flowers of hate?
Can we tune our lutes to these themes? Ah no!
Songs and singers are out of date.
Our songs should be of Faith without stain,
Of haughty honour and deaths that sow
The seeds of life on the battle-plain,
Of loves unsullied and eyes that show
The fair white soul in the deeps below.
Where are they, these that our songs await
To wake to joyance? Doth any know?
Songs and singers are out of date.
Of haughty honour and deaths that sow
The seeds of life on the battle-plain,
Of loves unsullied and eyes that show
195
Where are they, these that our songs await
To wake to joyance? Doth any know?
Songs and singers are out of date.
What have we done with meadow and lane?
Where are the flowers and the hawthorn-snow?
Acres of brick in the pitiless rain,—
These are our gardens for thorpe and stow.
Summer has left us long ago,
Turned to the lands where the turtles mate
And the crickets chirp in the wild-rose row.
Songs and singers are out of date.
Where are the flowers and the hawthorn-snow?
Acres of brick in the pitiless rain,—
These are our gardens for thorpe and stow.
Summer has left us long ago,
Turned to the lands where the turtles mate
And the crickets chirp in the wild-rose row.
Songs and singers are out of date.
We sit and sing to a world in pain;
Our hertstrings quiver sadly and slow:
But, aye and anon, the murmurous strain
Swells up to a clangour of strife and throe
And the folk that hearken, or friend or foe,
Are ware that the stress of the time is great
And say to themselves, as they come and go,
Songs and singers are out of date.
Our hertstrings quiver sadly and slow:
But, aye and anon, the murmurous strain
Swells up to a clangour of strife and throe
And the folk that hearken, or friend or foe,
Are ware that the stress of the time is great
And say to themselves, as they come and go,
Songs and singers are out of date.
Winter holds us, body and brain:
Ice is over our being's flow;
Song is a flower that will droop and wane,
If it have no heaven tow'rd which to grow.
Faith and beauty are dead, I trow;
Nothing is left but fear and fate:
Men are weary of hope; and so
Songs and singers are out of date.
Ice is over our being's flow;
Song is a flower that will droop and wane,
If it have no heaven tow'rd which to grow.
Faith and beauty are dead, I trow;
Nothing is left but fear and fate:
Men are weary of hope; and so
Songs and singers are out of date.
| The Poetical Works of John Payne | |