It surely sounds a pretty phrase,
Some pöesy for woe it wins,
Commemorating roundelays
And troubadours and mandolins:
We seem to view some minstrel-boy
Beside his shattered music mute,
The shattered string, the ruined joy--
The Rift within the Lute.

How swift the slip from tune to twang!
Sweets bitter grow, as aye they did;
For e'en the Roman poet sang
"_Surgit amari aliquid_."
Our pigmy worries turn us grey;
And sorrows fierce are less acute;
Our hearts are riddled every day
With Rifts within the Lute.

You envy FORTUNATUS--rich--
A charming bride--subservient friends.
To rival him were something which
The dream of Avarice transcends.
That charming bride a mother owns
Whom FORTUNATUS brands a brute:
She mars his life's entrancing tones--
His Rift within the Lute!

Then, PEREGRINE--he journeys far;
Unshackled, he by toil's routine:
By turns he quaffs a samovar