The Poetry Corner

Harmonics

By William Vaughn Moody

This string upon my harp was best beloved: I thought I knew its secrets through and through; Till an old man, whose young eyes lightened blue 'Neath his white hair, bent over me and moved His fingers up and down, and broke the wire To such a laddered music, rung on rung, As from the patriarch's pillow skyward sprung Crowded with wide-flung wings and feet of fire. O vibrant heart! so metely tuned and strung That any untaught hand can draw from thee One clear gold note that makes the tired years young-- What of the time when Love had whispered me Where slept thy nodes, and my hand pausefully Gave to the dim harmonics voice and tongue?