Sing, sweet Harp, oh sing to me <br />Some song of ancient days, <br />Whose sounds, in this sad memory, <br />Long-buried dreams shall raise; -- <br />Some lay that tells of vanish'd fame, <br />Whose light once round us shone, <br />Of noble pride, now turn'd to shame, <br />And hopes for ever gone. <br />Sing, sad Harp, thus sing to me; <br />Alike our doom is cast, <br />Both lost to all but memory, <br />We live but in the past. <br /> <br />How mournfully the midnight air <br />Among thy chords doth sigh, <br />As if it sought some echo there, <br />Of voices long gone by; -- <br />Of chieftains, now forgot, who seem'd <br />The foremost then in fame; <br />Of Bards who, once immortal deem'd, <br />Now sleep without a name. <br />In vain, sad Harp, the midnight air <br />Among thy chords doth sigh; <br />In vain it seeks an echo there <br />Of voices long gone by. <br /> <br />Couldst thou but call those spirits round, <br />Who once, in bower and hall, <br />Sate listening to thy magic sound, <br />Now mute and mouldering all; -- <br />But, no; they would but wake to weep <br />Their children's slavery; <br />Then leave them in their dreamless sleep, <br />The dead, at least are free! <br />Hush, hush, sad Harp, that dreary tone, <br />That knell of Freedom's day; <br />Or, listening to its death-like moan, <br />Let me, too, die away.<br /><br />Thomas Moore<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sing-sweet-harp/
