Music poems
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Hymn To Intellectual Beauty
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, -- visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, --
Music, When Soft Voices Die
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory --
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
To A Skylark
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Earthfast
© Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Architects plant their imagination, weld their poems on rock,
Clamp them to the skidding rim of the world and anchor them down to its core;
Leave more than the painter's or poet's snail-bright trail on a friable leaf;
Can build their chrysalis round them - stand in their sculpture's belly.
Music
© Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
This shape without space,
This pattern without stuff,
This stream without dimension
Surrounds us, flows through us,
But leaves no mark.
Polyphony In A Cathedral
© Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
Music curls
In the stone shells
Of the arches, and rings
Their stone bells.
The Children Look At The Parents
© Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
We being so hidden from those who
Have quietly borne and fed us,
How can we answer civilly
Their innocent invitations?
Snow White's Acne
© Denise Duhamel
At first she was sure it was just a bit of dried strawberry juice,
or a fleck of her mother's red nail polish that had flaked off
when she'd patted her daughter to sleep the night before.
But as she scrubbed, Snow felt a bump, something festering
Life
© Sir Walter Raleigh
What is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division,
Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
St. Winefred's Well
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
ACT I. SC. IEnter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.T. WHAT is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me? W. You came by Caerwys, sir?
T. I came by Caerwys.
W. There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle.
Let me be to Thee as the circling bird
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
The authentic cadence was discovered late
Which ends those only strains that I approve,
And other science all gone out of date
And minor sweetness scarce made mention of:
I have found the dominant of my range and state -
Love, O my God, to call Thee Love and Love.
Henry Purcell
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell
and praises him that, whereas other musicians have
given utterance to the moods of man's mind, he has,
beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and
species of man as created both in him and in all men
generally.
The Sea And The Skylark
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
How these two shame this shallow and frail town!
How ring right out our sordid turbid time,
Being pure! We, life's pride and cared-for crown,
The Habit Of Perfection
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Thus the Mayne glideth
© Robert Browning
THUS the Mayne glideth
Where my Love abideth;
Sleep 's no softer: it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
Over the Sea our Galleys Went
© Robert Browning
Over the sea our galleys went,
With cleaving prows in order brave,
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,
A Serenade At The Villa
© Robert Browning
That was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead and so was light.
Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha
© Robert Browning
Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!
Answer the question I've put you so oft:
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?
See, we're alone in the loft,---
The Wanderers
© Robert Browning
OVER the sea our galleys went,
With cleaving prows in order brave
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave--
A gallant armament:
Cleon
© Robert Browning
"As certain also of your own poets have said"--
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")--
To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
