Oh, Banquet Not

By Thomas Moore



Oh! banquet not in those shining bowers,
Where youth resorts, but come to me;
For mine's a garden of faded flowers,
More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee.
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
And many a cup in silence pour --
Our guests, the shades of former years --
Our toasts, to lips that bloom no more.

There, while the myrtle's withering boughs
Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,
To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, as some blighted laurel waves
Its branches o'er the dreary spot,
We'll drink to those neglected graves
Where valour sleeps, unnamed, forgot!