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.     1916.