Poems (Odom)/The Broken Harp
THE BROKEN HARP.
They tell me that I sing no more As once I sung in olden time;That broken is the harp of yore, And vanished are its notes sublime.Ah! could they read within my soul The saddened numbers swelling there,The bitter pangs that spurn control And fill my being with despair,They would not wonder that my harp Lies broken now beneath my feet,Or that my grief should render sharp The notes that once were low and sweet.
But, ah! the world may never sweep The chords that thrill within my heart;Its music lies too still and deep; It slumbers, but can ne'er depart.Could I but dip a magic quill In sources of Promethean fire, Then would I weave a burning thrill In every touch I gave my lyre.But now around its broken strings There linger only notes of woe;My hand no longer from it brings The music of the long ago.
I once at pleasure's altar knelt— Yes, knelt, and drank its richest wine;For then my heart had never felt The shadow of a darker shrine.I ne'er had known the maddening power Of love; my soul was then at rest;My heart was like a budding flower That nursed a sunbeam in its breast,But now—alas! that clouds should rise, Should darken-o'er so fair a sky,Should fill a gladsome heart with sighs, That once knew naught of tear or sigh.
I loved! there knelt before my shrine A being I was proud to win,Whose brow wore every seal divine— The stamp of virtue shrined within. We wedded—words grow weak and faint To color scenes so wildly bright;Dark pictures, art can always paint,— Who can portray a ray of light?But swiftly fled the dream of joy, And sad is its deserted throne;Fate came, alas! to blight—destroy;— We parted—I was left alone.
Yes, parted, that my love might lay Devotion on his country's shrine;While troubled shadows darkly play Around this lonely heart of mine.To think of moments past and bright But makes the sadness deeper now;'T is like the morning's robe of light Beside the midnight's sable brow.Then wonder not that I no more My harp in rapture wildly sweep;The joy that woke its notes before Now slumbers in a dreamless sleep.