Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/The Selfsame Song

by Thomas Hardy

THE SELFSAME SONG

A BIRD bills the selfsame song,
With never a fault in its flow,
That we listened to here those long
Long years ago.

A pleasing marvel is how
A strain of such rapturous rote
Should have gone on thus till now
Unchanged in a note!

—But it's not the selfsame bird.—
No: perished to dust is he. . . .
As also are those who heard
That song with me.