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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO ONE WHO BIDS ME SING, by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: You ask a 'many-winter'd' bard Last Line: His fancies sweet -- and bitter! Alternate Author Name(s): Dobson, Austin Subject(s): Aging | |||
'The straw is too old to make pipes of.' -- DON QUIXOTE. YOU ask a 'many-winter'd' Bard Where hides his old vocation? I'll give -- the answer is not hard -- A classic explanation. 'Immortal' though he be, he still, Tithonus-like, grows older, While she, his Muse of Pindus Hill, Still bares a youthful shoulder. Could that too-sprightly Nymph but leave Her ageless grace and beauty, They might, betwixt them both, achieve A hymn de Senectute; But She -- She can't grow gray; and so, Her slave, whose hairs are falling, Must e'en his Doric flute forgo, And seek some graver calling, -- Not ill-content to stand aside, To yield to minstrels fitter His singing-robes, his singing-pride, His fancies sweet -- and bitter! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER THE GENTLE POET KOBAYASHI ISSA by ROBERT HASS MEMORY AS A HEARING AID by TONY HOAGLAND AMOROSA AND COMPANY by CONRAD AIKEN GRAY WEATHER by ROBINSON JEFFERS FROM THE SPANISH by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON A FANCY FROM FONTENELLE by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON |
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