Life and Phantasy by William Allingham: With frontispiece by Sir John E. Millais: A design by Arthur H. Hughes and a song for voice and piano forte |
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A MODERN PLEASAUNCE. |
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 | Life and Phantasy |  |
140
A MODERN PLEASAUNCE.
Our Garden is full of flowers and bowers;
But the toll of a death-bell haunts the air.
We have tried to drown it with lute and voice,
Love-songs and banquet-songs for choice,
But still it is ever tolling there;
And who can silence that dreadful bell?
But the toll of a death-bell haunts the air.
We have tried to drown it with lute and voice,
Love-songs and banquet-songs for choice,
But still it is ever tolling there;
And who can silence that dreadful bell?
Take the grim key-note; modulate well;
Let us keep time and tune with the knell,—
Sing of mad pleasure and fierce despair,
Roses, and blood, and the fire of hell!
With pants and sobs, with shrieks and moans,
Loud laughter mingled with dying groans;
The death-bell knolling pitilessly
Through all, our key-note,—and what care we,
In our Garden full of bowers and flowers?
Let us keep time and tune with the knell,—
Sing of mad pleasure and fierce despair,
Roses, and blood, and the fire of hell!
With pants and sobs, with shrieks and moans,
Loud laughter mingled with dying groans;
The death-bell knolling pitilessly
Through all, our key-note,—and what care we,
In our Garden full of bowers and flowers?
| Life and Phantasy | |