Then with a little broken laugh I say,

 Snatching away

 The curtain where he grinned

 (My feverish sight thought) like a sin unsinned,

 “Only the wind!”

 Yet often too he steals so softly by,

 With half a sigh,

 I deem he must be mild,

 Fair as a woman, gentle as a child,

 And forest wild.

10

 Passing the door where an old wind-harp swings,

 With its five strings,

 Contrived long years ago

 By my first predecessor bent to show

 His handcraft so,

 He lays his fingers on the æolian wire,

 As a core of fire

 Is laid upon the blast

 To kindle and glow and fill the purple vast

 Prev. P 11/99 next