Hark to that faint, ethereal twang
That from the bosom of the breeze
Has caught its rise and fall: there rang
Æolian harmonies!
I looked; again the mournful, chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
And thus, meseemed, they sung.
"I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
With all men know or feel,—
"Oh, is it strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.
"There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its sapless, sad, and withered ghost
Echoes my melody.
"Come close, and lay your listening ear
Against the bare and branchless wood.
Say, croons it not, so low and clear,
As if it understood?"
I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire;
I heard its muffled music roll,
And stirred with sweet desire:
"O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for me?
Though long to me so coyly mute,
Sure she may speak through thee!"
I listened; but it was in vain.
At first, the wind's old, wayward will
Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain:
That ceased, and all was still.
But suddenly some kindling shock
Struck flashing through the wire: a bird,
Poised on it, screamed and flew; the flock
Rose with him, wheeled, and whirred.
Then to my soul there came this sense:
"Her heart has answered unto thine;
She comes, to-night. Go, hie thee hence!
Meet her: no more repine!"
Mayhap the fancy was far-fetched;
And yet, mayhap, it hinted true.
Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
In mine, that gave me—you!
And so more dear to me has grown,
Than rarest tones swept from the lyre,
The minor-movement of that moan
In yonder singing wire.
Nor care I for the will of states.
Or aught besides, that smites that string,
Since then so close it knit our fates,
What time the bird took wing!