Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/243

Rh 

We had a Harp,—'tis gone, We will not say 'tis broken,— No—no,—its tones are deep and high, Where music wraps in melody, Each thought by angels spoken.

 

break'st thou thus, the tomb of ancient night, Thou blind old bard, majestic and alone? Whose sightless eyes have fill'd the world with light, Such light as fades not with the set of sun, Light that the kindled soul doth feed upon, When with her harp she soars o'er mortal things, And from heaven's gate doth win some echoed tone, And fit it deftly to her raptur'd strings, And wake the sweet response, tho' earth with discord rings.

And lo! the nurtur'd in the Theban bower, Impetuous Pindar, mad with tuneful ire, Whose hand abrupt could rule with peerless power The linked sweetness of the Doric lyre; He too, whom History graves with pen of fire First on her chart,—the eloquent, the mild, Down at whose feet she sitteth as her sire, Listing his legends like a charmed child, Clear as the soul of truth, yet rob'd in fancy wild. 