Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887)

Persistent Music

LO! what am I, my Heart, that I should dare

To love her, who will never love again?

I, standing out here in the wind and rain,

With feet unsandalled, and uncovered hair,

Singing sad words to a still sadder air,

Who know not even if my song’s refrain—

“Of sorrow, sorrow! loved, oh, loved in vain!”—

May reach her where she sits and hath no care.

But I will sing in every man’s despite;

Yea, too, and love, and sing of love until

My music mixes with her dreams at night;

That when Death says to me, “Lie down, be still!”

She, pausing for my voice, and list’ning long,

May know its silence sadder than its song.