| |
| THERE 1 was a Lyre, ’tis said, that hung | |
| High waving in the summer air; | |
| An angel hand its chord had strung, | |
| And left to breathe its music there. | |
| Each wandering breeze, that o’er it flew, | 5 |
| Awoke a wilder, sweeter strain, | |
| Than ever shell of Mermaid blew | |
| In coral grottoes of the main. | |
| When, springing from the rose’s bell, | |
| Where all night he had sweetly slept, | 10 |
| The zephyr left the flowery dell | |
| Bright with the tears, that morning wept, | |
| He rose, and o’er the trembling lyre, | |
| Waved lightly his soft azure wing; | |
| What touch such music could inspire! | 15 |
| What harp such lays of joy could sing! | |
| The murmurs of the shaded rills, | |
| The birds, that sweetly warbled by, | |
| And the soft echo from the hills, | |
| Were heard not where that harp was nigh. | 20 |
| When the last light of fading day | |
| Along the bosom of the west, | |
| In colors softly mingled lay, | |
| While night had darken’d all the rest, | |
| Then, softer than that fading light, | 25 |
| And sweeter than the lay, that rung | |
| Wild through the silence of the night, | |
| As solemn Philomela sung, | |
| That harp its plaintive murmurs sigh’d | |
| Along the dewy breeze of even; | 30 |
| So clear and soft they swell’d and died, | |
| They seem’d the echoed songs of heaven. | |
| Sometimes, when all the air was still, | |
| And not the poplar’s foliage trembled, | |
| That harp was nightly heard to thrill | 35 |
| With tones, no earthly tones resembled. | |
| And then, upon the moon’s pale beams, | |
| Unearthly forms were seen to stray, | |
| Whose starry pinions’ trembling gleams | |
| Would oft around the wild harp play. | 40 |
| But soon the bloom of summer fled— | |
| In earth and air it shone no more; | |
| Each flower and leaf fell pale and dead, | |
| While skies their wintry sternness wore. | |
| One day, loud blew the northern blast— | 45 |
| The tempest’s fury raged along— | |
| Oh! for some angel, as they pass’d, | |
| To shield the harp of heavenly song! | |
| It shriek’d—how could it bear the touch, | |
| The cold rude touch of such a storm, | 50 |
| When e’en the zephyr seem’d too much | |
| Sometimes, though always light and warm. | |
| It loudly shriek’d—but ah! in vain— | |
| The savage wind more fiercely blew; | |
| Once more—it never shriek’d again, | 55 |
| For every chord was torn in two. | |
| It never thrill’d with anguish more, | |
| Though beaten by the wildest blast; | |
| The pang, that thus its bosom tore, | |
| Was dreadful—but it was the last. | 60 |
| And though the smiles of summer play’d | |
| Gently upon its shatter’d form, | |
| And the light zephyrs o’er it stray’d, | |
| That lyre they could not wake or warm. | |
