Ode To a Guitar

Your tempered strings and true, O ancient lyre! Harp-like, thy graceful template shall resonate Within the hollow confines of my soul Not tortoise and beech, but rather the ideal Purity of your design (here but fully Realized by half) speaks to me Now as ever before in my youth Touches, as it were, my heart-strings (Not inaptly named!) and stirs forth From the depths of my being a song. O! if I could master that song sublime A tune to capture thy several contradictions 'Twere a song would outlive the race of men Embodying form and function, earth and air Female grace in curve and force in line With woman's waist and hips, yet double-tusked Shoulders square, slender neck, even a mouth Teeth of gut, a creature turned inside-out A half-opened signpost to infinity.