| |
| MEN say the sullen instrument, | |
| That, from the Master’s bow, | |
| With pangs of joy or woe, | |
| Feels music’s soul through every fibre sent, | |
| Whispers the ravished strings | 5 |
| More than he knew or meant; | |
| Old summers in its memory glow; | |
| The secrets of the wind it sings; | |
| It hears the April-loosened springs; | |
| And mixes with its mood | 10 |
| All it dreamed when it stood | |
| In the murmurous pine-wood | |
| Long ago! | |
| The magical moonlight then | |
| Steeped every bough and cone; | 15 |
| The roar of the brook in the glen | |
| Came dim from the distance blown; | |
| The wind through its glooms sang low, | |
| And it swayed to and fro | |
| With delight as it stood | 20 |
| In the wonderful wood, | |
| Long ago! | |
| |
| O my life, have we not had seasons | |
| That only said, Live and rejoice? | |
| That asked not for causes and reasons, | 25 |
| But made us all feeling and voice? | |
| When we went with the winds in their blowing, | |
| When Nature and we were peers, | |
| And we seemed to share in the flowing | |
| Of the inexhaustible years? | 30 |
| Have we not from the earth drawn juices | |
| Too fine for earth’s sordid uses? | |
| Have I heard, have I seen | |
| All I feel, all I know? | |
| Doth my heart overween? | 35 |
| Or could it have been | |
| Long ago? | |
| |
| Sometimes a breath floats by me, | |
| An odor from Dreamland sent, | |
| That makes the ghost seem nigh me | 40 |
| Of a splendor that came and went, | |
| Of a life lived somewhere, I know not | |
| In what diviner sphere, | |
| Of memories that stay not and go not, | |
| Like music heard once by an ear | 45 |
| That cannot forget or reclaim it, | |
| A something so shy, it would shame it | |
| To make it a show, | |
| A something too vague, could I name it, | |
| For others to know, | 50 |
| As if I had lived it or dreamed it, | |
| As if I had acted or schemed it, | |
| Long ago! | |
| |
| And yet, could I live it over, | |
| This life that stirs in my brain, | 55 |
| Could I be both maiden and lover, | |
| Moon and tide, bee and clover, | |
| As I seem to have been, once again, | |
| Could I but speak it and show it, | |
| This pleasure more sharp than pain, | 60 |
| That baffles and lures me so, | |
| The world should once more have a poet, | |
| Such as it had | |
| In the ages glad, | |
| Long ago! | 65 |
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