“I am playing my oldest tunes,” declared she,

   “All the old tunes I know,—

Those I learnt ever so long ago.”

—Why she should think just then she’d play them

   Silence cloaks like snow.

When I returned from the town at nightfall

   Notes continued to pour

As when I had left two hours before:

“It’s the very last time,” she said in closing;

   “From now I play no more.”

A few morns onward found her fading,

   And, as her life outflew,

I thought of her playing her tunes right through;

And I felt she had known of what was coming,

   And wondered how she knew.

1912.