I touch not that harp,
Let it slumber alone;
For its notes but awaken
Sad memories of one
Whose hand often swept
The soft wires along,
And aroused them to music,
To love, and to song.
But Death, the destroyer,
Ere grief threw a ray
O’er her flowery path,
Snatched her rudely away;
And the harp that resounded,
With loveliest tone,
To her delicate touch,
Has since slumbered alone.
Then awake not a strain—
Let it still repose there,
And be breathed on alone
By the sweet summer air;
For its numbers though lively,
Though joyous and light,
But cast o’er my spirits
A wildering blight.
[Alone.]
Never, no nevermore,
Shall thy soft hand be pressed in mine,
Or on my breast thy weary head recline,
As oft of yore.
And though thou wert to me
Life’s only charm, I yet can bear
A little while, since thou art free from care,
Alone to be.
For to my heart is given,
The cheering hope, that soon, where pain
And partings are unknown, we’ll meet again—
In yonder heaven.
[Gone Astray.]
Leila, thou art resting well,
In thy lonely, narrow cell—
Dark and lonely, narrow cell,—
And I would with thee had died,
And was sleeping by thy side,—
In the graveyard by thy side,—
She who gave thee being, she
Who made life a joy to me,—
A blessing and a joy to me.
Were she with thee, I could bear
All life’s agony and care,—
Bitter agony and care,—
But alas, she went astray
From the straight and narrow way,—
Virtue’s straight and narrow way—
And, O misery, became
To her sex a thing of shame,—
A thing of infamy and shame.