The Unknown Singer Poem by Alexander Anderson

Far down within my heart she stands
With downcast eyes and folded hands,


And singing as she sang that day
Within a village far away.


Amid the winter wind and rain
A simple song with sad refrain,


Such as a poet sings with lips
Half closed by sorrow's finger tips.


And still the old-world melody
Comes with its burden unto me.


I hear it in the thronging street
And in the sound of human feet.


But who the singer, in whose heart
So much of sorrow had a part,


That all his song with tears was wet,
And dim with shadowy regret?


We know not. What to him was name,
And all the idle voice of fame?


Far better that his song was sung
To haunt the heart and ear and tongue,


As in that village far away
Beneath a sky of gloomy grey,


I heard it with its sad refrain
Amid the winter wind and rain.