The Strange Music
G. K. Chesterton
1874 to 1936
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.
In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath ere let fall,
I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.
Hoary Time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.
But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,
Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.
But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once.
Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,
Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,
But I will not fear to match them - no, by God, I will not fear,
Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;
Not as mine, my soul's anointed, not as mine the rude and light
Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,
Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,
In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;
Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.