The Harp

Across the wind-swept spaces of the sky
The harp of all the world is hung on high,
And through its shining strings the swallows fly.

The little silver fingers of the rain
Oft touch it softly to a low refrain,
That all day long comes o'er and o'er again.

And when the storms of God above it roll,
The mighty wind awakes its sleeping soul
To songs of wild delight or bitter dole.

And through the quiet night, as faint and far
As melody down-drifted from a star,
Trembles strange music where those harp-strings are.

But only flying words of joy and woe,
Caught from the restless earth-bound souls below,
Over the vibrant wires ebb and flow.

And in the cities that men call their own,
And in the unnamed places, waste and lone,
This harp forever sounds Life's undertone.

Virna Sheard

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

Virna Sheard

Prairie

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

The Knight-Errant

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

The Rover

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

At Dawn

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Harp's Song

All day, all day in a calm like death
The harp hung waiting the sea wind's breath.

When the western sky flushed red with shame
At the sun's bold kiss, the sea wind came.

Said the harp to the breeze, Oh, breathe as soft
As the ring-dove cooes from its nest aloft.

I am full of a song that mothers croon
When their wee ones tire of their play at noon.

Though a harp may feel 'tis a silent thing
Till the breeze arises and bids it sing.

Said the wind to the harp, Nay, sing for me
The wail of the dead that are lost at sea.

I caught their cry as I came along,
And I hurried to find you and teach you the song.

Oh, the heart is the harp, and love is the breeze,
And the song is ever what love may please.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Gulls

When the mist drives past and the wind blows high,
And the harbour lights are dim -
See where they circle, and dip and fly,
The grey free-lances of wind and sky,
To the water's distant rim!

Like spirits possessed of a fierce delight,
A courage that cannot fail,
They face the breakers - they face the night -
The mad storm-horses are silvery white,
They ride through the bitter gale!

They seem like the souls of the long, long lost,
Who breasted the ocean-main -
Vikings whose vessels were tempest-tossed,
Voyagers who sailed, whatever the cost,
And never came home again.

Or stranger and wilder fancy - it seems
As I hear their wind-torn cry,
No birds fly there through the sun's last gleams,
But the wraiths of hopes - the ghosts of dreams<...

Virna Sheard

The Shepherd Wind

When hills and plains are powdered white,
And bitter cold the north wind blows,
Upon my window in the night
A fairy-garden grows.

Here poppies that no hand hath sown
Bloom white as foam upon the sea,
And elfin bells to earth unknown
Hold frost-bound melody.

And here are blossoms like to stars
Tangled in nets of silver lace -
My very breath their beauty mars,
Or stirs them from their place.

Perchance the echoes of old songs
Found here a resting place at last
With drifting perfume that belongs
To roses of the past.

Or all the moonbeams that were lost
On summer nights the world forgets
May here be prisoned by the frost
With souls of violets.

The wind doth shepherd many things -
And when the nights are long an...

Virna Sheard

To An Aeolian Harp

The winds have grown articulate in thee,
And voiced again the wail of ancient woe
That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee,
The quivering moan of pale Andromache,
Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.
It is the soul of sorrow that we know,
As in a shell the soul of all the sea.
So sometimes in the compass of a song,
Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live,
The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands
Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong
In sweeping sadness of the winds that give
Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.

Sara Teasdale

Harmonics

        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?

William Vaughn Moody

Sea-Born

Afar in the turbulent city,
In a hive where men make gold,
He stood at his loom from dawn to dark,
While the passing years were told.

And when he knew it was summer-time
By the grey dust on the street,
By the lingering hours of daylight,
And the sultry noon-tide heat -

Oh! he longed as a captive sea-bird
To leave his cage and be free,
For his heart like a shell kept singing
The old, old song of the sea.

And amid the noise and confusion
Of wheels that were never still,
He heard the wind through the scented pines
On a rough, storm-beaten hill;

While, beyond a maze of painted threads,
Where his tireless shuttle flew,
In fancy he saw the sunlit waves
Beckon him out to the blue.

Virna Sheard