Experience, imagined as a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience and coaxes out a strain that is God’s will in the world. To human ears, though, this music arrives in sad, perplexing minors. It brings a deathly cold that pulls us back from daydreams of enchanted nightingales in visionary wolds. We murmur, “Where is any certain tune or measured music in such notes as these?” The speaker gives voice to that aching frustration—the heart’s disappointment when faced with suffering that seems formless and harsh. Yet the sonnet then turns from our limited hearing. Angels, leaning from golden seats, have listened to the whole composition. Their finer ears perceive completed cadences, a design invisible to us. Smiling down through the stars, they whisper a single, tender word: “Sweet.” The final mood is hushed reassurance, as if a discord we cannot resolve will one day be heard as perfect harmony.
Perplexed Music — Summary
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.