{"id":9111,"date":"2023-01-10T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=9111"},"modified":"2023-01-10T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T06:00:00","slug":"the-old-piano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/the-old-piano\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Piano"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From The Sun, January 10, 1915<\/a>. By H. S. Haskins.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

And now, at last, you\u2019ve got to go,    I\u2019ve come to say good-by.Forgive an old man\u2019s weakness and    The tears which fill my eyes.For five-and-twenty years I\u2019ve played    Upon your friendly keys,Which, yellowed \u2018neath their tuneful tasks    Are rich in memories.My little children, all of them,    Have learned to play on you;One key was cracked by Johnny\u2019s tooth,    One scratched by Baby Sue.And one note never has regained    Its old sonorous toneSince Tom, to stop his \u201cpractice,\u201d went    And hit it with a stone.I lift your lid, the rusty strings    With ghostly echoes startTo quiver with the long farewell    That\u2019s bursting from my heart.Your sounding board, melodic in    The long, long yesterday,Vibrates with Tosti\u2019s sweet \u201cGood Night\u201d    My wife so loved to play.Like sad handshake a final chord    Is lovingly caressed.May your career now ended be,    And this your last long rest!I cannot bear the thought of you    By fond use made divine,Responding to the ruthless touch    Of other hands than mine;I cannot think of cheap dance hall,    All smoke and heat and beer,With drunken fingers banging at    The keys I hold so dear;But rather may you stand, forgot,    So harmonies may fillThe twilight of your life, safe in    A warehouse, cool and still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Sun, January 10, 1915. By H. S. Haskins. And now, at last, you\u2019ve got to go,    I\u2019ve come to say good-by.Forgive an old man\u2019s weakness and    The tears which fill my eyes.For five-and-twenty years I\u2019ve played    Upon your friendly keys,Which, yellowed \u2018neath their tuneful tasks    Are rich in memories.My little children, all of them,    Have learned to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,18],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-9111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-the-sun","tag-h-s-haskins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}