TO MY FATHER'S VIOLIN

Does he want you down there

In the Nether Glooms where

The hours may be a dragging load upon him,

As he hears the axle grind

Round and round

Of the great world, in the blind

Still profound

Of the night-time? He might liven at the sound

Of your string, revealing you had not forgone him.

In the gallery west the nave,

But a few yards from his grave,

Did you, tucked beneath his chin, to his bowing

Guide the homely harmony

Of the quire

Who for long years strenuously -

Son and sire -

Caught the strains that at his fingering low or higher

From your four thin threads and eff-holes came outflowing.

And, too, what merry tunes

He would bow at nights or noons

That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure,

When he made you speak his heart

As in dream,

Without book or music-chart,

On some theme

Elusive as a jack-o’ - lanthorn's gleam,

And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure.

Well, you can not, alas,

The barrier overpass

That screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder,

Where no fiddling can be heard

In the glades

Of silentness, no bird

Thrills the shades;

Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades,

No bowing wakes a congregation's wonder.

He must do without you now,

Stir you no more anyhow

To yearning concords taught you in your glory;

While, your strings a tangled wreck,

Once smart drawn,

Ten worm-wounds in your neck,

Purflings wan

With dust-hoar, here alone I sadly con

Your present dumbness, shape your olden story.