English poem
The Strange Music
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
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 ere 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.