250
ERINNA.
No energy undevoted to my lyre.
It was my other self that had a power;
Mine, but o'er which I had not a control.
At times it was not with me, and I felt
A wonder how it ever had been mine:
And then a word, a look of loveliness,
A tone of music, call'd it into life;
And song came gushing, like the natural tears,
To check whose current does not rest with us.
Had I lived ever in the savage woods,
Or in some distant island, which the sea
With wind and wave guards in deep loneliness;
Had my eye never on the beauty dwelt
Of human face, and my ear never drank
The music of a human voice; I feel
