Oh, banquet not in those shining bowers, <br />Where Youth resorts, but come to me, <br />For mine's a garden of faded flowers, <br />More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee. <br />And there we shall have our feast of tears, <br />And many a cup in silence pour; <br />Our guests, the shades of former years, <br />Our toasts, to lips that bloom no more. <br /> <br />There, while the myrtle's withering boughs <br />Their lifeless leaves around us shed, <br />We'll brim the bowl to broken vows <br />To friends long lost, the changed, the dead. <br />Or, while some blighted laurel waves <br />Its branches o'er the dreary spot, <br />We'll drink to those neglected graves <br />Where valour sleeps, unnamed, forgot.<br /><br />Thomas Moore<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/oh-banquet-not/
