Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN ITALIAN SONNET-SEQUENCE: 1 by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT

First Line: TAKE NOT YOUR FINGERS FROM THE IVORY KEYS
Last Line: AND BREAK HIS LIPS TO SONG IN SYMPATHY.
Subject(s): LOVE;
Take not your fingers from the ivory keys,
But let them linger, straying here and there;
Or let them sink melodiously where
Lie fair, locked pearls in music's sobbing seas.
We look and smile, artless of what doth please
Us, for our lips are dumb, sealed with despair
To say the happiness our mute hearts bear
And cannot tell except in strains like these.
Then go not. Hold that last note ere it flee.
Weave thy sweet themes anew, until they wind
A golden maze of dreams and harmony.
One wayward note adventurous way may find
Where timid love in silence sits enshrined,
And break his lips to song in sympathy.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net