E TENEBRIS I TUNED in to a symphony
from a conquered country. They were conquered too, those violins, and the wind in the reed was the wind of desolation
–out of the dark I heard the music come—
and the air in the pipe the air of the lost city and the brass the cry of mutilation and the silence its prayer for pity and the beat of the drum the beat of the yielded drum.
I: was grey music as all the streets are grey, weary as feet are weary, uncomprehending
as sense•that suffers the single day,
porant of its birth, unmindful of its ending. It was a ghost that I heard, the shadow of a wing across the sun and the fall of a shot bird.
Yet those violins did more than play their mock of music : over the heavy bow and empty strings I heard them say, "Though they have murdered their kin, stronger than they, he shall not lie with the slain, but his breath shall blow as the winds blow
across the reed and singing violin, • seeking his living symphony again." HELEN SPALDING.
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