Let me hear music, for I am not sad, But half in love with sadness. To dream so, And dream, and so forget the dream, and so Dream I am dreaming! This old little voice, Which pants and flutters in the clavichord, Has the bird's wings in it, and women's tears, The dust has drunken long ago, and sighs As of a voiceless crying of old love That died and never spoke; and then the soul Of one who sought for wisdom; and these cry Out of the disappointment of the grave. And something, in the old and little voice, Calls from so farther off than far away, I tremble, hearing it, lest it draw me forth, This flickering self, desiring to be gone, Into the boundless and abrupt abyss Whereat begins infinity; and there This flickering self wander eternally Among the soulless, uncreated winds Which storm against the barriers of the world. But most I hear the pleading and sad voice Of beauty, sad because it cannot speak Out of harsh stones and out of evil noise, And out of thwarted faces, and the gleam Of things corrupted, and all ruinous things. This is the voice that cries, and would be heard, And can but speak in music. Venerable And ageless beauty of the world, whose breath Is life in all things, I have seen your form In cloud, and grass, and wave, and glory of man, Flawless, but I have heard your very voice Here only, here only human, and here sad Only of all your voices upon earth. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON HEARING OF INTENTION .. TO PURCHASE THE POET'S FREEDOM by GEORGE MOSES HORTON A ST. HELENA LULLABY by RUDYARD KIPLING THE BRIDGE by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW OF HYM THAT TOGYDER WYLL SERVE TWO MAYSTERS by SEBASTIAN BRANT THE WEARY PUND O' TOW by ROBERT BURNS VERSES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF DRUMLANRIG WOODS by ROBERT BURNS |