Dregs

Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 1867 – 23 February 1900)


DREGS

The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof
(This is the end of every song man sings!)
The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,
Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;
And health and hope have gone the way of love
Into the drear oblivion of lost things.
Ghosts go along with us until the end;
This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.
With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait
For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:
This is the end of all the songs man sings.

- Ernest Christopher Dowson

Source:

The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson by Ernest Christopher Dowson, with a memoir by Arthur Symons.