The Strange Music

by G.K. Chesterton

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,
    But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon my back,
Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,
    Still, my hope is all before me; for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall,
    In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;
Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,
    Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.

Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and light
    Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;
Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,
    Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,
    Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.
But I will not fear to match them - no by God, I will not fear,
    I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

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Last modified: 12th March, 1999

Martin Ward, De Montfort University, Leicester.
Email: martin@gkc.org.uk