THE HARPER'S SONG

This sweetness trembling from the strings

The music of my troublous lute

Hath timed Herodias’ daughter's foot;

Setting a-clink her ankle-rings

Whenas she danced to feasted kings.

Where gemmed apparel burned and caught

The sunset‘ neath the golden dome,

To the dark beauties of old Rome

My sorrowful lute hath haply brought

Sad memories sweet with tender thought.

When night had fallen and lights and fires

Were darkened in the homes of men,

Some sighing echo stirred:— and then

The old cunning wakened from the wires

The old sorrows and the old desires.

Dead Kings in long forgotten lands,

And all dead beauteous women; some

Whose pride imperial hath become

Old armour rusting in the sands

And shards of iron in dusty hands,

Have heard my lyre's soft rise and fall

Go trembling down the paven ways,

Till every heart was all ablaze —

Hasty each foot — to obey the call

To triumph or to funeral.

Could I begin again the slow

Sweet mournful music filled with tears,

Surely the old, dead, dusty ears

Would hear; the old drowsy eyes would glow,

Old memories come; old hopes and fears,

And time restore the long ago.