Perplexed Music

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.