The title refers to what’s usually spelled the Aeolian harp, also known as a wind harp. It’s a wooden box containing a sounding board. Strings are stretched across it. As the breeze blows on it, the strings resonate and create an eerie and ethereal sound.
The text comes from Sibylline Leaves.
The Eolian Harp |
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Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire. |
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| My pensive° Sara! thy soft cheek reclined | thoughtful | |
| Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is | ||
| To sit beside our cot,° our cot o’ergrown | cottage | |
| With white-flower’d Jasmin, and the broad-leav’d Myrtle, | ||
| (Meet° emblems they of Innocence and Love!) | appropriate | |
| And watch the clouds, that late° were rich with light, | recently | |
| Slow sad’ning round, and mark the star of eve° | Mercury | |
| Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) | ||
| Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents | ||
| Snatch’d from yon° bean-field! and the world so hush’d! | over there | |
| The stilly murmur of the distant Sea | ||
| Tells us of Silence. | ||
| And that simplest Lute, | ||
| Placed length-ways in the clasping casement,° hark!° | window — listen | |
| How by the desultory° breeze caress’d, | unplanned | |
| Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, | ||
| It pours such sweet upbraidings,° as must needs | criticisms | |
| Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings | ||
| Boldlier swept, the long sequacious° notes | one after the other | |
| Over delicious surges sink and rise, | ||
| Such a soft floating witchery of sound | ||
| As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve | ||
| Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, | ||
| Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, | ||
| Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, | ||
| O! the one Life, within us and abroad, | ||
| Which meets all Motion, and becomes its soul, | ||
| A Light in Sound, a sound-like power in Light, | ||
| Rhythm in all Thought, and Joyance° every where— | delight | |
| Methinks,° it should have been impossible | it seems to me | |
| Not to love all things in a world so fill’d, | ||
| Where the breeze warbles° and the mute still Air | sings | |
| Is Music slumbering on its instrument! | ||
| And thus, my love! as on the midway slope | ||
| Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, | ||
| Whilst thro’ my half-closed eye-lids I behold | ||
| The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,° | sea | |
| And tranquil muse upon tranquillity; | ||
| Full many a thought uncall’d and undetain’d, | ||
| And many idle flitting phantasies, | ||
| Traverse° my indolent° and passive brain, | travel across — lazy | |
| As wild and various as the random gales° | breezes | |
| That swell and flutter on this subject lute! | ||
| And what if all of animated nature | ||
| Be but organic° harps diversly fram’d,° | living — variously constructed | |
| That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps | ||
| Plastic° and vast, one intellectual breeze, | changeable | |
| At once the Soul of each, and God of All? | ||
| But thy more serious eye a mild reproof | ||
| Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts | ||
| Dim and unhallow’d dost thou not reject, | ||
| And biddest me walk humbly with my God. | ||
| Meek daughter in the family of Christ! | ||
| Well hast thou said and holily disprais’d | ||
| These shapings of the unregenerate° mind, | not reformed | |
| Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break | ||
| On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling° spring. | always-bubbling | |
| For never guiltless may I speak of him, | ||
| Th’ Incomprehensible I save° when with awe | except | |
| I praise him, and with Faith that inly° feels; | internally | |
| Who with his saving mercies healed me, | ||
| A sinful and most miserable Man, | ||
| Wilder’d° and dark, and gave me to possess | bewildered, confused | |
| Peace, and this Cot,° and Thee, heart-honor’d Maid! | cottage |