To My Lyre
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 faint hand upon the surface sweeps;
And still she beats against the prison bars,
Till brooding silence comes and smothers her pert jars.
[Kelsall, 1851]
