The Last Performance

“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.