The mountains stoop to hills and hills to stones, That shrug and wrinkle, hunch their backs and crook A rhythmic stairway for the water tones To strike clear intervals and cause a brook To lead a melody, arpeggios Might hurry to a precipice and lose, If shorter gaps, cautious rests, softer blows Forgot to intervene, or art to choose; Below, the music broadens to a stream, An island interrupts with dissonance, But contrapuntal fusion saves the theme, And reaches resolution in the sea: Horizons round the cadence, close the trance Whose stones and water carve a symphony. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SOUL'S EXPRESSION by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING MEMORABILIA by ROBERT BROWNING IDEA: 14. TO TIME by MICHAEL DRAYTON IN MEMORIAM: W.G. WARD by ALFRED TENNYSON ALAS! by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS REMEMBER OR FORGET by C. HAMILTON AIDE BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS: BOOK 1. THE FIRST SONG by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |