Perplexed Music

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

　　AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO E. J. 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 worlds. 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.