Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Horæ Amoris: Songs and Sonnets (1903). IV. To an Instrument

Rosa Newmarch (1857–1940)

OTHERS, before he came with mastery

To set thy stops to choral songs of praise,

Or draw thy subtlest undertones from thee,

Essayed to wake thy spirit in past days.

His touch is stilled for ever. Yet I stand

And listen while thy soulless, fickle keys,

In dull obedience to a stranger’s hand,

For other ears give forth fresh voluntaries.

And some there be, whose hearts thus lightly move

In shallow melody to each new touch,

And deem these mutable vibrations Love.

O Unforgotten, mine is not of such!

My heart shall be like some rare instrument,

Whose strings broke when its only player went.