Life's Tragedy
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906
It may be misery not to sing at all,
And to go silent through the brimming day;
It may be misery never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.
To sing the perfect song,
And by a half-tone lost the key,
There the potent sorrow, there the grief,
The pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy.
To have come near to the perfect love,
Not the hot passion of untempered youth,
But that which lies aside its vanity,
And gives, for thy trusting worship, truth.
This, this indeed is to be accursed,
For if we mortals love, or if we sing,
We count our joys not by what we have,
But by what kept us from that perfect thing.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 37 sec read
- 179 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAXA XBXB XCBC ADXD |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 628 |
Words | 124 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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