Penance

"Why do you sit, O pale thin man,

At the end of the room

By that harpsichord, built on the quaint old plan?

- It is cold as a tomb,

And there's not a spark within the grate;

And the jingling wires

Are vain desires

That have lagged too late."

"Why do I? Alas, far times ago

A woman lyred here

In the evenfall; one who fain did so

From year to year;

And, in loneliness bending wistfully,

Would wake each note

In sick sad rote,

None to listen or see.

"I would not join. I would not stay,

But drew away,

Though the winter fire beamed brightly - Aye!

I do today

What I would not then; and the chill old keys,

Like a skull's brown teeth

Loose in their sheath,

Freeze my touch; yes, freeze."

A quote from a Hardy novel

“I am now about to enter on my normal condition. For people are almost always in their graves. When we survey the long race of men, it is strange and still more strange to find that they are mainly dead men, who have scarcely ever been otherwise.” (Desperate Remedies)

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