To My Fathers Violin by Thomas Hardy Lyrics

    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 can not, 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.

1916.