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Edna St. Vincent Millay - To A Poet That Died Young
Work rating: Medium

Minstrel, what have you to do
With this man that, after you,
Sharing not your happy fate,
Sat as England`s Laureate?
Vainly, in these iron days,
Strives the poet in your praise,
Minstrel, by whose singing side
Beauty walked, until you died.

Still, though none should hark again,
Drones the blue-fly in the pane,
Thickly crusts the blackest moss,
Blows the rose its musk across,
Floats the boat that is forgot
None the less to Camelot.

Many a bard`s untimely death
Lends unto his verses breath;
Here`s a song was never sung:
Growing old is dying young.
Minstrel, what is this to you:
That a man you never knew,
When your grave was far and green,
Sat and gossipped with a queen?

Thalia knows how rare a thing
Is it, to grow old and sing;
When a brown and tepid tide
Closes in on every side.
Who shall say if Shelley`s gold
Had withstood it to grow old?
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