Page:In Bohemia (1886).djvu/16

Round our hearts with gentle breathing still the plaintive silence plays,
But we brush away its wreathing, filled with cares of common days.

Ever thinking of the morrow, burdened down with needs and creeds,
Once or twice, mayhap, in sorrow, we may hear the song that pleads;
Once or twice, a dreaming poet sees the beauty as it flies.
But his vision who shall know it, who shall read it from his eyes?
Voiceless he,—his necromancy fails to cage the wondrous bird;
Lure and snare are vain when fancy flies like echo from a word.
Only sometime he may sing it, using speech as 'twere a bell.
Not to read the song but ring it, like the sea-tone from a shell.
Sometimes, too, it comes and lingers round the strings all still and mute,
Till some lover's trembling fingers draw it living from the lute.