The Hours in Final Chorus

The Hours in Final Chorus

Original Text

The Poetical Works of Charles Harpur, ed. Elizabeth Perkins (London, Sydney and Melbourne: Angus & Robertson, 1984): 901-02.

Night Hours.
1Where's the young Bard
2Who sang of his loneliness yesternight
3In such strains as, when heard,
4Drew a cloud o'er the rising moon's light?
Day hours.
5Hark, Echo cries Where?
6He hath passed from the world as that cloud from the sky;
7He hath fled to a rest where his once sleepless eye
8Glares no more with despair.
Night hours.
9We have sojourned in every clime
10Having name in the annals of time,
11From the gates of the West to the portals of Morn,
12And in all to be poor was a crime!
13From sorrow and scorn
14For the poverty-born,
15Then say where this refuge may be?
Day hours.
16He's dead! -- he is dead!
17Gone to his death bed,
18Though not in the shade of the old willow tree
19He longed to die under when dying so wild
20And where no one but Misery crieth -- Ah me!
21For the loveliest child that 'ere died on her knee!
22Where none, save herself, mourns for Misery's child.
Night hours.
23Ah! That he should,
24Though heart-wild with loneliness yesternight!
25And for why? though he could
26Not rejoice in the rising moon's light.
Day hours.
27He asked but to toil
28For the proud and the wealthy, and met with rebuke!
29He strove to be humble -- but how might he brook
Night hours.
31But alas! until Error is hurled
32From his throne in the heart of the world;
33And till Love over Wrong hath the victory sure,
34And the standard of Right is unfurled,
35Such scorn aye endure
36Must the lowly and poor,
37No matter how worthy they be!
Day hours.
38Even so. He is dead!
39Gone to his death bed,
40Where sleeps he as well as if under that Tree
41His dying thought saw by the runnel so wild
42And though no one but Misery crieth -- Ah me!
43For the loveliest child that e'er died on her knee!
44Though none, save herself, mourns for Misery's child.

Notes

30] contumely: insolent or insulting language Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Cameron LaFollette
RPO Edition
2012
Form