To My Father’s Violin Thomas Hardy

    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.