Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar

Poem (1858-01-18), “The Voiceless,” ll. 7-8.
    (Source)

First read by Holmes (according to Longfellow) at a dinner that date of the Harvard Musical Association. Included in the 1858-10 installment of "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table" (Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 5), and the collected Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, ch. 12 (1858). First published as poetry in Songs in Many Keys (1862).