Sonnet Clxxxiv: Poem by George Henry Boker

If sorry music on this lute were played,
And someone told you, Cleopatra's skull
Was fashioned to this chamber round and full,
And this long neck of Helen's thigh was made;
Each key was graven and each fret inlaid
From bones of beauties, whose caress could lull
The Grecian madman or the Tudor bull,
And all these strings were Rosamond's golden braid;
What were your profit, if the air I tried
Halted and stammered from the precious strings,
And in the ear of listless hearers died?
I sometimes tremble, as these numbers glide,
Lest I bemean my love, with paltry things,
To bear a censure wholly on my side.