The portrait rests unfinished on the easel,
and while the painter dreams, death plays his song.
The chords, arranged to lull, the tune, decrease will,
enchant the portraitist to sleep too long,
but though he knows death's waiting by his bed,
and though the rest eternal seems so sweet,
he feels it yet, a fire in his head
that drives him from his covers to his feet.
His hands may shake, his vision may be blurred,
but still he sets his canvas in the light.
The echoes in his mind of what he heard—
that loving call he knows he has to fight.
One day he'll get it out, express his soul,
till then, he must resist death's gentle pull.
Tale Told 