Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack, <br />But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back, <br />Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, <br />Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet. <br /> <br />In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall, <br />In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all; <br />Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame, <br />Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name. <br /> <br />Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and light <br />Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight; <br />Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar, <br />Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are. <br /> <br />But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once, <br />Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce. <br />But I will not fear to match them-no, by God, I will not fear, <br />I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.<br /><br />Gilbert Keith Chesterton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-strange-music-2/
