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