Poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, VII

^{Translated from the Spanish by Mason Carnes}

In the dark corner of the drawing-room,
     Forgotten by its mistress long ago,
Silent, cover’d with dust there in the gloom
          The old harp lies.

How many notes slept in those strings half-dead
     And waited for her fingers, white as snow.
To wake them into throbbing life, that fled
          Away in sighs!

Ah me! thought I, how oft sleeps genius thus
     Deep in the soul, hoping eternally
A voice will say, as He to Lazarus,
          “Arise and walk.”—Ah me!