I weary of the histories of men--
The garnered store of books in grim array;
Life's bitter salvage, leather-bound, and then
Left to the silence and a bloom of gray.
I weary of the stories that they hold;
The clash of arms sounds through them like a knell;
I weary of the Kings in crowns of gold,
The Kings victorious, and the Kings who fell.
There are too many tears on every page;
Too red a tide sweeps every chapter in;
There is no word of peace in any age,
Except the peace that death rode forth to win.
And old unhappiness, long wrapped in sleep,
And thrice-armed feud that passed in wrath and woe,
And white despair from many a dungeon keep,
Arise to haunt us still, where'er we go.
Yet through the years the sun was warm and sweet,
And pipers piped at morn, and night and noon,--
And there was carnival with dancing feet,
And love and joyance always came in June,--
O, to remember when the pages close--
Linked with the vision of the deathless brave,--
The nightingale, the moonlight, and the rose,
And all the beauty that the lost years gave!