Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MUSIC, TO A BOY OF FOUR YEARS OLD, .. HIM PLAY ON THE HARP, by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Sweet boy! Before thy lips can learn Last Line: Are strangers on life's shores. Alternate Author Name(s): Croaker Subject(s): Child Musicians; Child Prodigies | ||||||||
SWEET boy! before thy lips can learn In speech thy wishes to make known, Are "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" Heard in thy music's tone. Were Genius tasked to prove the might, The magic of her hidden spell, She well might name thee with delight As her own miracle. Who that hath heard, from summer trees, The sweet wild song of summer birds, When morning to the far-off breeze Whispers her bidding words; Or listened to the bird of night, The minstrel of the star-light hours, Companion of the fire-fly's flight, Cool dews, and closed flowers; But deemed that spirits of the air Had left their native homes in heaven, And that the music warbled there To earth awhile was given? For with that music came the thought That life's young purity was theirs, And love, all artless, and untaught, Breathed in their woodland airs. And when, sweet boy! thy baby fingers Wake sounds of heaven's own harmony, How welcome is the thought that lingers Upon thy lyre and thee! It calls up visions of past days, When life was infancy and song To us, and old remembered lays, Unheard, unheeded long; Revive in joy or grief within us, Like lost friends wakened from their sleep, With all their early power to win us Alike to smile or weep. And when we gaze upon that face, Blooming in innocence and truth, And mark its dimpled artlessness, Its beauty and its youth; We think of better worlds than this, Of other beings pure as thou, Who breathe, on winds of Paradise, Music as thine is now. And know the only emblem meet Of that pure Faith the heart adores, To be a child like thee, whose feet Are strangers on Life's shores. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MARCO BOZZARIS by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK ODE TO FORTUNE by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK RED JACKET by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK THE NATIONAL PAINTINGS: COL. TRUMBULL'S 'THE DECLARATION...' by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK A POET'S DAUGHTER by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK A SKETCH by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK BURLESQUE ADDRESS; ON OPENING OF NEW PARK THEATRE, 1821 by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK CONNECTICUT by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK DOMESTIC HAPPINESS by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK IN SIMON; CATERER FOR FASHIONABLE SUPPER-PARTIES by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK |
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