ALAS, that my heart is a lute, Wheron you have learned to play! For a many years it was mute, Until one summer's day You took it, and touched it, and made it thrill, And it thrills and throbs, and quivers still! I had known you, dear, so long! Yet my heart did not tell me why It should burst one morn into song, And wake to new life with a cry, Like a babe that sees the light of the sun, And for whom this great world has just begun. Your lute is enshrined, cased in, Kept close with love's magic key, So no hand but yours can win And wake it to minstrelsy; Yet leave it not silent too long, nor alone, Lest the strings should break, and the music be done. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WRITTEN IN EMERSON'S ESSAYS by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE WORN WEDDING-RING by WILLIAM COX BENNETT AN EPITAPH UPON HUSBAND AND WIFE WHO DIED AND WERE BURIED by RICHARD CRASHAW ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND PEOPLING WESTERN COUNTRY by PHILIP FRENEAU MY PICTURE LEFT IN SCOTLAND by BEN JONSON JUGGLING JERRY by GEORGE MEREDITH |