A MINOR CHORD

I heard a strain of music in the street -

A wandering waif of sound. And then straightway

A nameless desolation filled the day.

The great green earth that had been fair and sweet,

Seemed but a tomb; the life I thought replete

With joy, grew lonely for a vanished May.

Forgotten sorrows resurrected lay

Like bleaching skeletons about my feet.

Above me stretched the silent, suffering sky,

Dumb with vast anguish for departed suns

That brutal Time to nothingness has hurled.

The daylight was as sad as smiles that lie

Upon the wistful, unkissed mouths of nuns,

And I stood prisoned in an awful world.