Music to Hear
George Shearing, William Shakespeare
Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds
By unions married, do offend thine ear
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one
Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none."
