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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Secret Music

Siegfried Sassoon

I keep such music in my brain
No din this side of death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell.

My dreaming spirit will not heed
The roar of guns that would destroy
My life that on the gloom can read
Proud-surging melodies of joy.

To the world’s end I went, and found
Death in his carnival of glare;
But in my torment I was crowned,
And music dawned above despair.
Online text © 1998-2009 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Old Huntsman and Other Poems | Henry Holt, 1918
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