Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO MY FATHER'S VIOLIN, by THOMAS HARDY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Does he want you down there Last Line: Your present dumbness, shape your olden story. Subject(s): Fathers; Violins | ||||||||
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 cannot, 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NEAR MISS HAIKU by ANSELM HOLLO OUT-OF-THE-BODY TRAVEL by STANLEY PLUMLY HE'D BE NOTHING BUT HIS VIOLIN by MARY KYLE DALLAS THE OLD VIOLIN by MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN THE VIOLINIST by MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON THE VIOLIN'S ENCHANTRESS by WILLIAM ROSE BENET A VIOLINIST by FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON AND THERE WAS A GREAT CALM' by THOMAS HARDY |
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