Poems (Jackson)/Refrain

by Helen Hunt Jackson

REFRAIN.

F all the songs which poets sing,
  The ones which are most sweet,
 Are those which at close intervals
  A low refrain repeat;
 Some tender word, some syllable,
  Over and over, ever and ever,
 While the song lasts,
  Altering never,
Music if sung, music if said,
Subtle like some fine golden thread
  A shuttle casts,
 In and out on a fabric red,
  Till it glows all through
  With the golden hue.
 Oh! of all the songs sung,
  No songs are so sweet
 As the songs with refrains,
  Which repeat and repeat.

 Of all the lives lived,
  No life is so sweet,
 As the life where one thought,
  In refrain doth repeat,
 Over and over, ever and ever,
  Till the life ends,
  Altering never,
Joy which is felt, but is not said,
Subtler than any golden thread
  Which the shuttle sends.
 In and out in a fabric red,
  Till it glows all through
  With a golden hue.
 Oh! of all the lives lived,
  Can be no life so sweet
 As the life where one thought
  In refrain doth repeat.

 "Now name me a thought
  To make life so sweet,
 A thought of such joy
  Its refrain to repeat."
 Oh! foolish to ask me. Ever, ever
  Who loveth believes,
  But telleth never.
It might be a name, just a name not said
But in every thought; like a golden thread
  Which the shuttle weaves
 In and out on a fabric red,
  Till it glows all through
  With a golden hue.
 Oh! of all sweet lives,
  Who can tell how sweet
 Is the life which one name
  In refrain doth repeat?