Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years,
till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the
boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a
mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious
mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps
to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with
winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling
piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to
burst into clamour
With the great black piano
appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child
for the past.
