I heard those echoing tones your touch unpenned,
Now hammer-notes that rivetted life with love,
Now light as sou’west wind blown softly above;
But all you played only to him could tend.
So let it be, I said, until life’s end;
In the tinkling wash at the bows, or water lapping
All night upon the dinghy’s side, or tapping
Of light wind in the halyards; there is my friend.
So did your unrelenting notes flit by,
While death and music in my thought were welded