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James Russell Lowell - The Wind-Harp
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I treasure in secret some long, fine hair
  Of tenderest brown, but so inwardly golden
I half used to fancy the sunshine there,
So shy, so shifting, so waywardly rare,
  Was only caught for the moment and holden
While I could say _Dearest!_ and kiss it, and then
In pity let go to the summer again.

I twisted this magic in gossamer strings
  Over a wind-harp`s Delphian hollow;
Then called to the idle breeze that swings
All day in the pine-tops, and clings, and sings
  `Mid the musical leaves, and said, `Oh, follow
The will of those tears that deepen my words,
And fly to my window to waken these chords.`

So they trembled to life, and, doubtfully
  Feeling their way to my sense, sang, `Say whether
They sit all day by the greenwood tree,
The lover and loved, as it wont to be,
  When we--` But grief conquered, and all together
They swelled such weird murmur as haunts a shore
Of some planet dispeopled,--`Nevermore!`

Then from deep in the past, as seemed to me,
  The strings gathered sorrow and sang forsaken,
`One lover still waits `neath the greenwood tree,
But `tis dark,` and they shuddered, `where lieth she,
  Dark and cold! Forever must one be taken?`
But I groaned, `O harp of all ruth bereft,
This Scripture is sadder,--"the other left"!`

There murmured, as if one strove to speak,
  And tears came instead; then the sad tones wandered
And faltered among the uncertain chords
In a troubled doubt between sorrow and words;
  At last with themselves they questioned and pondered,
`Hereafter?--who knoweth?` and so they sighed
Down the long steps that lead to silence and died.
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