The Violin

He gave me all, and then he laid me by.Straining my strings to breaking, with his pain,He voiced an anguish, through my wailing cry,Never to speak again.

He pressed his cheek against me, and he wept—Had we been glad together over much?—Emotions that within me deep had sleptGrew vibrant at his touch,

And I, who could not ask whence sprung his sorrowResponsive to a grief I might not know,Sobbed as the infant that each mood doth borrowSobs for the mother's woe.

Wild grew my voice and stormy, with his passion,Lifted at last unto a tragic might;Then swift it changed, in sad and subtile fashion,To pathos infinite,

Swooning away beneath his faltering fingersTill the grieved plaints seemed, echoless, to die;When, calm, he rose, and with a touch that lingers,Laid me forever by.

Forever! Ah, he comes no more—my lover!And all my spirit wrapped in trance-like sleep,Darkling I dream that such a night doth coverHis grief with hush as deep.