A Reed by the River/Songs

by Virginia Woodward Cloud

SONGS

Singers of yore, sweet poets of any clime,Players and minstrels all, whose lips are dust,From the white heritage we reap of time—Hymns that smote flame from steel that now is rust,Echoes blown down from an Arcadian hillOr born of vigils tombed within that past,Wrought of red hate or tuned to rapture's thrill,—One strain outlives you, singing to the last;We too, we too, one morn shall silent go,The lute, the reed o'er which life's wind doth sweep,And all our little day, its love and woe,Cast forth, forgot if we did laugh or weep;But singing hence some hour with passion rifeMay live,—the soul of long forgotten strife.