THE BADGER PUBLIC LIBRARY - Swinburne Poetry

A Dirge

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A bell tolls on in my heart
    As though in my ears a knell
    Had ceased for awhile to swell,
But the sense of it would not part
From the spirit that bears its part
    In the chime of the soundless bell.

Ah, dear dead singer of sorrow,
    The burden is now not thine
    That grief bade sound for a sign
Through the songs of the night whose morrow
Has risen, and I may not borrow
    A beam from its radiant shrine.

The burden has dropped from thee
    That grief on thy life bound fast;
    The winter is over and past
Whose end thou wast fain to see.
Shall sorrow not comfort me
    That is thine no longer---at last?

Good day, good night, and good morrow,
    Men living and mourning say.
    For thee we could only pray
That night of the day might borrow
Such comfort as dreams lend sorrow:
    Death gives thee at last good day.