StoryTitle("caps", "The Finding of the Lyre") ?>
a year my pupils teach me "The Finding of the Lyre." By the time
I have learned it they know the meaning of every line and have caught the
spirit of the verse. There is an ancient "lyre," or violin, made in
northern Africa, in the possession of a Boston lady, and I have found
the mud-turtle rattle among the Indians on the Indian reservation at
Syracuse, New York. They use it as a musical instrument in their
Thanksgiving dances. The poem helps to build an interest in history
and mythology while it develops a child's reverence
and insight. (1819-91.)
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There lay upon the ocean's shore", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "What once a tortoise served to cover;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A year and more, with rush and roar,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The surf had rolled it over,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Had played with it, and flung it by,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As wind and weather might decide it,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Cheap burial might provide it.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It rested there to bleach or tan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The rains had soaked, the sun had burned it;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With many a ban the fisherman", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Had stumbled o'er and spurned it;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And there the fisher-girl would stay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Conjecturing with her brother", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How in their play the poor estray", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Might serve some use or other.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So there it lay, through wet and dry,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As empty as the last new sonnet,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till by and by came Mercury,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And, having mused upon it,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Why, here,\" cried he, \"the thing of things", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In shape, material, and dimension!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A wonderful invention!\"", "") ?>
PagePoem(149, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So said, so done; the chords he strained,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And, as his fingers o'er them hovered,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The shell disdained a soul had gained,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The lyre had been discovered.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "O empty world that round us lies,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Brought we but eyes like Mercury's,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In thee what songs should waken!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("James Russell Lowell.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>