Explore "The Harp of the Minstrel" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The harp of the minstrel has never a tone / As sad as the song in his bosom to-night, / For the magical touch of his fingers alone / Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright; / But oh! as the smile of the moon may impart / A sorrow to one in an alien clime, / Let the light of the melody fall on the heart, / And cadence his grief into musical rhyme.
The faces have faded, the eyes have grown dim / That once were his passionate love and his pride; / And alas! all the smiles that once blossomed for him / Have fallen away as the flowers have died.
The hands that entwined him the laureate's wreath / And crowned him with fame in the long, long ago, / Like the laurels are withered and folded beneath / The grass and the stubble -- the frost and the snow.
Then sigh, if thou wilt, as the whispering strings / Strive ever in vain for the utterance clear, / And think of the sorrowful spirit that sings, / And jewel the song with the gem of a tear.
For the harp of the minstrel has never a tone / As sad as the song in his bosom tonight, / And the magical touch of his fingers alone / Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright.