Classic Poem

Like the notes of an old violin,
Thoughts talk to me within
My mind, that shuttered-room.
Like luminous portraits, hung
On walls where I once was young,
Dead friends pervade the gloom.

Decades of mellowing went
To make this calmed content,
This mental vintagement
Of youth's harsh tasting wine . . .
Old violin, play on
Till heart-held thought be gone:
Old friends whose charity shone
For me, be memory-mine.