| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | To a Lady Playing on the Cithern | | By James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) |
| | | SO dreamy-soft the notes, so far away | |
| They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon | |
| Blow their faint Hunt’s-up from the good time gone; | |
| Or, on a morning of long-withered May, | |
| Larks tinkle unseen o’er Claudian’s arches gray, | 5 |
| That Romeward crawl from Dreamland; and anon | |
| My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness on, | |
| To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. | |
| In happier times and scenes I seem to be, | |
| And, as her fingers flutter o’er the strings, | 10 |
| The days return when I was young as she, | |
| And my fledged thoughts began to feel their wings | |
| With all Heaven’s blue before them: Memory | |
| Or Music is it such enchantment sings? | | | | |
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