60
HAUNTING FINGERS
“'Cello, good mate,
You speak my mind as yours:
Doomed to this voiceless, crippled, corpselike state,
Who, dear to famed Amphion, trapped here, long endures?"
"Once I could thrill
The populace through and through,
Wake them to passioned pulsings past their will." . . .
(A contra-basso spake so, and the rest sighed anew.)
And they felt old muscles travel
Over their tense contours,
And with long skill unravel
Cunningest scores.
“The tender pat
Of her aery finger-tips
Upon me daily—I rejoiced thereat!"
(Thuswise a harpsicord, as from dampered lips.)
“My keys' white shine,
Now sallow, met a hand
Even whiter. . . . Tones of hers fell forth with mine
In sowings of sound so sweet no lover could withstand!"
