Music poems
/ page 131 of 253 /
The White Bees
© Henry Van Dyke
Long ago Apollo called to Aristæus,
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees."
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees.
The Ancestral Dwelling
© Henry Van Dyke
Dear to my heart are the ancestral dwellings of America,
Dearer than if they were haunted by ghosts of royal splendour;
These are the homes that were built by the brave beginners of a nation,
They are simple enough to be great, and full of a friendly dignity.
Shelley
© Henry Van Dyke
What wonder, Shelley, if the restless wave
Should claim thee and the leaping flame consume
Thy drifted form on Viareggio's beach?
Fate to thy body gave a fitting grave,
And bade thy soul ride on with fiery plume,
Thy wild song ring in ocean's yearning speech!
Peace
© Henry Van Dyke
IIN EXCELSISTwo dwellings, Peace, are thine.
One is the mountain-height,
Uplifted in the loneliness of light
Beyond the realm of shadows,--fine,
Pan Learns Music
© Henry Van Dyke
Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock,
Where is sweet Echo, and where is your flock?
What are you making here? "Listen," said Pan, --
"Out of a river-reed music for man!"
Milton
© Henry Van Dyke
Lover of Liberty at heart wast thou,
Above all beauty bright, all music clear:
To thee she bared her bosom and her brow,
Breathing her virgin promise in thine ear,
And bound thee to her with a double vow, --
Exquisite Puritan, grave Cavalier!
Late Spring
© Henry Van Dyke
I Ah, who will tell me, in these leaden days,
Why the sweet Spring delays,
And where she hides, -- the dear desire
Of every heart that longs
Keats
© Henry Van Dyke
Yet thou hast won the gift Tithonus missed:
Never to feel the pain of growing old,
Nor lose the blissful sight of beauty's truth,
But with the ardent lips that music kissed
To breathe thy song, and, ere thy heart grew cold,
Become the Poet of Immortal Youth.
If All the Skies
© Henry Van Dyke
If all the skies were sunshine,
Our faces would be fain
To feel once more upon them
The cooling splash of rain.
Hymn of Joy
© Henry Van Dyke
To the music of Beethoven's ninth symphony Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
Praising Thee their sun above.
Tinuviel
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
There is an inn, a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill.
Seasons
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In the willow-meads of Tasarinan I walked in the Spring.
Ah! The sight and smell of the Spring in Nantasarion!
And I said that was good.
I wandered in Summer in the elm-woods of Ossiriand.
Earendil
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
Durin
© John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone,
When Durin woke and walked along.
The Burden Of Itys
© Oscar Wilde
This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
ENDYMION (For music)
© Oscar Wilde
The apple trees are hung with gold,
And birds are loud in Arcady,
The sheep lie bleating in the fold,
The wild goat runs across the wold,
Amor Intellectualis
© Oscar Wilde
Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
From antique reeds to common folk unknown:
And often launched our bark upon that sea
Serenade (For Music)
© Oscar Wilde
The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark AEgean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Humanitad
© Oscar Wilde
It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn's gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew
