HARMONICS

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?