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, while some blighted laurel waves

     Its branches o'er the dreary spot,

We'll drink to those neglected graves

     Where valour sleeps, unnamed, forgot.