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Old Song

 TIS a dull sight
 To see the year dying,
When winter winds
 Set the yellow wood sighing:
 Sighing, O sighing!

When such a time cometh
 I do retire
Into an old room
 Beside a bright fire:
 O, pile a bright fire!

And there I sit
 Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
 While the wind sings--
 O, drearily sings!

I never look out
 Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
 Is the leaves falling fast:
 Falling, falling!

But close at the hearth,
 Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
 And chivalry--
 Gallant chivalry!

Then with an old friend
 I talk of our youth--
How 'twas gladsome, but often
 Foolish, forsooth:
 But gladsome, gladsome!

Or, to get merry,
 We sing some old rhyme
That made the wood ring again
 In summer time--
 Sweet summer time!

Then go we smoking,
 Silent and snug:
Naught passes between us,
 Save a brown jug--
 Sometimes!

And sometimes a tear
 Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
 So merrily--
 So merrily!

And ere to bed
 Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
 We kneel on the knee,
 Praying together!

Thus, then, live I
 Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By Heaven! the bold sun
 Is with me in the room
 Shining, shining!

Then the clouds part,
 Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
 And the meadows are green!

I jump up like mad,
 Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
 The meadows again!