Book
3
The End of all
Songs
The fire is out, and spent the
warmth thereof,
(This is the end of every song
man sings!)
The golden wine is drunk, the
dregs remain,
Bitter as wormwood and as salt
as pain;
And health and hope have gone
the way of love
Into the drear oblivion of lost
things,
Ghosts go along with us until
the end;
This was a mistress, this,
perhaps, a friend.
With pale, indifferent eyes, we
sit and wait
For the dropt curtain and the
closing gate:
This is the end of all the songs
man sings.
Ernest Dowson
Dregs
1899