The Dead Violin

Icicles ... icicles hang from the eaves In glittering sheaves, Over attic windows, A cold wind heaves Great, shuddering, gusty sighs; it grieves For its waning power in the gay March sun, Whose melting work now is well begun ... Soft, slow, Drip, drip, Soft, slow, Drop, drop ... Great icicle tears ... Glistening, heavy, sun-drenched tears! Under my roof Remote, aloof, Lies this deer-hide trunk with its quaint, brass nails, Ancient, small ... How that old wind wails As I lift the lid to see What is here for me! Delightful find! All carefully, carefully lined With old old wall-paper, blue and gold! First I unfold An Indian shawl ... then a linen sheet ... Oh ... packets of letters, still faintly sweet ... “More letters to burn!” I groan, “Dear dear! But here ... look here! As I live an old, old violin, So frail and thin, And dusky dark in its shapely line; A shell out-worn; (hear that old wind whine!) With a cruel gash here at one side, And the tail-piece torn And dangling, tied by a piece of twine ... A dead violin in fine.

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“We spend our years as a tale that is told” Violins packed in a poetry mould! Blue violins that, liquid, pour Vanished songs on a mystic shore ... Green violins that ecstatic trill Like bobolinks, till the year stands still In a lyrical meadow of green and gold ... (Violins packed in a poetry mould!) Red violins of a summer night Throbbing with passionate, blood-red song ... Dead violin! Ice-bound so long ... Soft! Soft ... drop softly icicle tears ... Icicle tears from the ice-bound years, Vibrating under my strong, new roof, Where the old violin, remote, aloof, Lies in my hands so terribly dead ... Never an echo of throbbing red ... Dead. Dead.

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I want to bury it where it will rot In rich warm earth, in a noontide hot, Under the mightiest tree I know, And let it again through the tree-roots grow. I’ll fold it close in the soft, old sheet, Place the letters, still faintly sweet, Against the gash in its dark-hued side ... Its the violin--not Love--that died.