MY Lyre! thou art the bower of my senses, Where they may sleep in tuneful visions bound; These trembling chords shall be their breeze-kissed fences, Which are with music's tendrils warmly wound, As with some creeping shrub, which sweets dispenses And on each quivering stalk blossoms a sound. My lyre! thou art the barred prison grate Where shackled melody a bond-maid sleeps, And taunting breezes as her torturers wait: With radiant joy the hapless prisoner peeps And sings delight, with freedom's hope elate, When some fair hand upon the surface sweeps; And still she beats against the prison bars, Till silence comes and smothers her pert jars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW; ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27 FEB. 1867 by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL SHIPS AT SUNSET by STANLEY E. BABB ON THE BACKWARDNESS OF THE SPRING 1771 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD CATHERINE TO GREGORY, THE POPE by MARY KATE BLAND A CANTO OF KHANS by BERTON BRALEY ALL THESE MAKE MUSIC by ANNA SHAW BUCK VENICE; A FRAGMENT by GEORGE GORDON BYRON WHY DISTRICT SCHOOL USED TO KEEP IN VERMONT by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY |