Music poems
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The Princess (part 4)
© Alfred Tennyson
But when we planted level feet, and dipt
Beneath the satin dome and entered in,
There leaning deep in broidered down we sank
Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold.
In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 95
© Alfred Tennyson
By night we linger'd on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth; and o'er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;
Maud XVIII: I have led her Home, my love, my only friend
© Alfred Tennyson
I have led her home, my love, my only friend,
There is none like her, none.
And never yet so warmly ran my blood
And sweetly, on and on
Calming itself to the long-wished-for end,
Full to the banks, close on the promised good.
The Bath
© Gary Snyder
Fire inside and boiling water on the stove
We sigh and slide ourselves down from the benches
wrap the babies, step outside,
From “Odi Barbare”
© Geoffrey Hill
xxiv
What is far hence led to the den of making:
Moves unlike wildfire | not so simple-happy
Ploughman hammers ploughshare his durum dentem
Digging the Georgics
Friendship and Love
© Mark Akenside
In vain thy lawless Fires contend with mine,
Tho' Crouds unnumber'd fall before thy Shrine;
Let Youths, who ne'er aspir'd to noble Fame,
And the soft Virgin, kindle at thy Flame,
Thee, Son of Indolence and Vice, I scorn,
By Reason nourish'd, and of Virtue born.
America
© Tony Hoagland
Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison
Convict Once - Part First.
© James Brunton Stephens
I.
FREE again! Free again! eastward and westward, before me, behind me,
Wide lies Australia! and free are my feet, as my soul is, to roam!
Oh joy unwonted of space undetermined! No limit assigned me!
Freedom conditioned by nought save the need and desire of a home!
Hymn to the Comb-Over
© Wesley McNair
How the thickest of them erupt just
above the ear, cresting in waves so stiff
Song of Myself
© Walt Whitman
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
Memory As a Hearing Aid
© Tony Hoagland
Somewhere, someone is asking a question,
and I stand squinting at the classroom
with one hand cupped behind my ear,
trying to figure out where that voice is coming from.
At a Symphony
© Louise Imogen Guiney
Oh, I would have these tongues oracular
Dip into silence, tease no more, let be!
Spring In The North
© Henry Van Dyke
Ah, think not early love alone is strong;
He loveth best whose heart has learned to wait:
Dear messenger of Spring that tarried long,
You're doubly dear because you come so late.
Absolution
© Edith Nesbit
He stood beside her, young and strong, and swayed
With pity for the sorrow in her eyes--
Which, as she raised them to his own, conveyed
Into his soul a sort of sad surprise--
The Tables Turned
© André Breton
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
Sonnet III
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
OF all the woodland flowers of earlier spring,
These golden jasmines, each an air-hung bower.
Meet for the Queen of Fairies' tiring hour,
Seem loveliest and most fair in blossoming;
In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 3
© Alfred Tennyson
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
Road
© Yeghishe Charents
I love the sun-baked taste of Armenian words,
the lilt of ancient lutes in sweet laments
our blood-red fragrant roses bending
as in Nayiran dances, danced still by our girls.
