When I walked back that well-known way last night,
I hardly knew the place. Friends I had owned
Had gone, and little lonely echoes moaned
About the spot that once their talk made bright.
Yet at my window I beheld a light.
And entering my room, some insect droned
As usual, some beetle black intoned
A lone familiar monody of flight.
I saw the instrument I often played,
The books I loved, the chair wherein I sat.
I dared to try a tune by memory led.
It had a sound of music that had strayed
From rhythm, lost, untutored, broken, flat....
I did not know till then that I was dead.
First published in The Australasian, 1 December 1923
