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Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she
sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Public Domain

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For only a few of us was the past worse than now. I grew up in a regular paradise!
But i wouldn’t agree to go back for anything—let the tears flow….
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Thanks, Sean. My life is better now than any other time. It’s been a long journey to get here.
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Michael: What you do with this site is amazing. I can only imagine the regular work involved in this, curator par excellence!
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Thanks, Sean. I put a few hours a day into Vox Populi.
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I have long loved this poem. Thanks for posting it.
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Thanks Edison!
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Sorry for typos. Songs not songs, sighhh🤪
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I imagine my mom reading this. ( She did her masters on Hardy snd Lawrence). I envision our old black piano the family singing dongs from 1800s and early 1900s. Thank you for the vision.
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Thanks for this, Barbara. How are you?
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Home from 5 days in hospital. Not sure how chemo will proceed. Survived ER on New Years Eve. Still have docs try to figure out why tests say my heart should be damaged but it looks ok. Tired. Glad to have Vox Populi through it all.
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One day at a time, eh?
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Yep!
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