The Strange Music
G. K. Chesterton
1874 to 1936
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Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may and slack,
But I wander like a minstrel with harp upon his back,
Though the harp be on bosom, though I finger and I fret,
Still, my is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.
In your strings is hid a music that no hath ere let fall,
In your soul is sealed pleasure that you have not known at all;
Pleasure as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,
than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.
Not as mine, my soul's anointed, not as the rude and light
Easy mirth of many faces, pride of song and fight;
Something stranger, something sweeter, waiting you afar,
Secret as your stricken senses, magic your sorrows are.
But on this, God's harp supernal, but to be stricken once.
Hoary Time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.
But I will fear to match them - no, by God, I not fear,
I will learn you, I will play and the stars stand still to hear.