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The Harp is dual natured; Heaven and Earth
Are parents of its birth;
Heaven, the radiant mother, Earth, the sire
Whose unappeased desire
Reverberates and rings
Along its throbbing strings.
In sounds more eloquent than any words
The Heavenly Mother speaks--in tender chords
And tones that seem the echo from God's lands
Of singing choral bands.
The Spirit of Celestial music floats
Great argosies of soft, melodious notes
Down the high octaves to their port and goal,
The human soul.
Then from some deep sea place, where dwells the
resonant bass,
All suddenly the mortal passions wake
And like wind-driven billows, rush and break
Upon the heart and flood it with an ocean
Of memory and emotion.
Ambitions, aspirations, hopes and dreams
Past, present, future, swirl in those great streams
Of harmony; and over and above
Sounds the clear call of love.
Into her confidence has Nature taken
The wondrous harp; so oft her strings are shaken
By voices of the wind--
By erie laughter of the elfin kind--
By ripple of the brooks, by fall of leaves
And by the ebbing tide that sighs and grieves--
By whirr of wings at dawn--by that sweet word
Uttered in deep wood trysts twixt bird and bird
At mating time--yea all that Nature feels
And knows and understands, the Harp reveals.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. |
