Classic Poem

“Over my organ-keys in the twilight
If I but let my wandering fingers
Stray at their will, would they not, out of muted
Notes and broken sequences and diminished
Chords, evoke a ghostly echo of you?—
Chanting slowly in the ambiguous darkness
More than a resurrection of our old choral,—
Freeing at last the shadowy fugue beyond you
That I divined and loved, but never knew?

“Sidonian lute!
Still tremulous with music. . . .
Sidonian lute!
Whose breasts were lilies. . . .

“Over these keys, growing dim in the twilight,
Slowly, confusedly, wander my fingers,
Impotent now to build, from the muted
Notes and broken sequences and diminished
Chords, an echo of you.
Chanting solemnly now in the deepening darkness
Rises the host of implacable memories.
Into the darkness dies the wandering music,
And I remember the poignant you alone.”