The Last Performance

Lyrics

"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. 1912.