Read "L'Envoy" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
NOW in a thought, now in a shadowed word, / Now in a voice that thrills eternity, / Ever there comes an onward phrase to me
Of some transcendent music I have heard; / No piteous thing by soft hands dulcimered,
No trumpet crash of blood-sick victory, / But a glad strain of some vast harmony
That no brief mortal touch has ever stirred.
There is no music in the world like this, / No character wherewith to set it down,
No kind of instrument to make it sing.
No kind of instrument? Ah, yes, there is; / And after time and place are overthrown, / God's touch will keep its one chord quivering.