TIS a dull sight
  To see the year dying,
When winter winds
  Set the yellow wood sighing:
  Sighing, O sighing!
When such a time cometh
  I do retire
Into an old room
  Beside a bright fire:
  O, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
  Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
  While the wind sings--
  O, drearily sings!
I never look out
  Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
  Is the leaves falling fast:
  Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,
  Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
  And chivalry--
  Gallant chivalry!
Then with an old friend
  I talk of our youth--
How 'twas gladsome, but often
  Foolish, forsooth:
  But gladsome, gladsome!
Or, to get merry,
  We sing some old rhyme
That made the wood ring again
  In summer time--
  Sweet summer time!
Then go we smoking,
  Silent and snug:
Naught pa**es between us,
  Save a brown jug--
  Sometimes!
And sometimes a tear
  Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
  So merrily--
  So merrily!
And ere to bed
  Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
  We kneel on the knee,
  Praying together!
Thus, then, live I
  Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By Heaven! the bold sun
  Is with me in the room
  Shining, shining!
Then the clouds part,
  Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
  And the meadows are green!
I jump up like mad,
  Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
  The meadows again!