@3'Stop playing, brother: may a poet speak?'@1 —BROWNING. MASTERS of music, ye of tuneful vein, Is it laughter or love or sorrow of heart That fashions your art, The blessing of God or the bane? For ye wake in the night, in the winter long, By day ye are haunted with tumult of sound, Your straining eyes and your ears are bound With charm of music and spell of song. As ye walk alone in the flower-lit plain The black earth opens at your feet, And flutes and horns and viols sweet From the sunless depth send up their strain; And where, our peaceful thoughts among, We wander unheeding by streams and hills, For you, the water and forest fills With whirl of music and whisper of song. The chirp of the sparrow, the cry of the crane As he leaves the marsh for the isleless air Ye hearken not: 'tis a sound more fair That burns in your heart and sings in your brain. Ye are lost to the world; the biting thong Of deed and duty binds you not. Ah, wife and children your soul forgot In passion of music and marriage of song. Poor haunted hearts! with secret pain God's madness lives upon your mind; Unearthly vision makes you blind, God's blessing is your bane. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...REPULSE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON VERY EARLY SPRING by KATHERINE MANSFIELD DESERT FLOWERS by KEITH CASTELLAINE DOUGLAS ROSE AYLMER by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR RAILROAD RHYME by JOHN GODFREY SAXE SONNET: 106 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE KING'S DAUGHTER by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |