The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (9.1896)

Song of Sorrow

By Charles Catty

I can sing not of youth or of morning;

I have ears for no music of bird;

I have eyes for no beauty adorning
The lives of young lovers. One warning
I bring you—one bitter cold word :

Sorrow, sorrow, I sing,

Sorrow, sorrow :

The woods echo—Sorrow, and echoing, say—
If it come not to-day,

T hen—to-morrow.

I can sing not of love or of laughter ;

These fail and are ended and die;

As an echo beneath the wood’s rafter
Swoons off, and is heard never after,

So love and so laughter wing by.

Sorrow, sorrow, I sing,

Sorrow, sorrow :

The years answer—Sorrow, and answering, say
Ye who weep not to-day
Will to-morrow.