Perplexed Music

Portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806–1861

EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand, Whence harmonies, we cannot understand, Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds Fall on us while we hear, and countermand Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland With nightingales in visionary wolds. We murmur ' Where is any certain tune Or measured music in such notes as these ? ' But angels, leaning from the golden seat, Are not so minded their fine ear hath won The issue of completed cadences, And, smiling down the stars, they whisper-- SWEET.

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