  This string upon my harp was best beloved: I thought I knew its secrets through and through; Till an old man, whose young eyes lightened blue 'Neath his white hair, bent over me and moved His fingers up and down, and broke the wire To such a laddered music, rung on rung, As from the patriarch's pillow skyward sprung Crowded with wide-flung wings and feet of fire. O vibrant heart! so metely tuned and strung That any untaught hand can draw from thee One clear gold note that makes the tired years young— What of the time when Love had whispered me Where slept thy nodes, and my hand pausefully Gave to the dim harmonics voice and tongue? |
|
