Music poems
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To Music
© Robert Herrick
Begin to charm, and as thou strok'st mine ears
With thine enchantment, melt me into tears.
Then let thy active hand scud o'er thy lyre,
And make my spirits frantic with the fire;
That done, sink down into a silvery strain,
And make me smooth as balm and oil again.
To Music, To Becalm His Fever
© Robert Herrick
Charm me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers;
That being ravish'd, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Upon Himself
© Robert Herrick
Thou shalt not all die; for while Love's fire shines
Upon his altar, men shall read thy lines;
And learn'd musicians shall, to honour Herrick's
Fame, and his name, both set and sing his lyrics.
Oberon's Feast
© Robert Herrick
Hapcot! To thee the Fairy State
I with discretion, dedicate.
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious, and un-familiar.
A Hymn To The Graces
© Robert Herrick
When I love, as some have told
Love I shall, when I am old,
O ye Graces! make me fit
For the welcoming of it!
To Music, To Becalm A Sweet Sick Youth
© Robert Herrick
Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere,
On this sick youth work your enchantments here!
Bind up his senses with your numbers, so
As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe.
The Bad Season Makes The Poet Sad
© Robert Herrick
Dull to myself, and almost dead to these,
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since every thing
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Upon Julia's Voice
© Robert Herrick
When I thy singing next shall hear,
I'll wish I might turn all to ear,
To drink-in notes and numbers, such
As blessed souls can't hear too much
To Music: A Song
© Robert Herrick
Music, thou queen of heaven, care-charming spell,
That strik'st a stillness into hell;
Thou that tam'st tigers, and fierce storms, that rise,
With thy soul-melting lullabies;
Fall down, down, down, from those thy chiming spheres
To charm our souls, as thou enchant'st our ears.
A Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall
© Robert Herrick
Voice 1:
Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this Day,
That sees December turn'd to May.
Soft Music
© Robert Herrick
The mellow touch of music most doth wound
The soul, when it doth rather sigh, than sound.
Money Makes The Mirth
© Robert Herrick
When all birds else do of their music fail,
Money's the still-sweet-singing nightingale!
In The Small Hours
© Wole Soyinka
Departures linger. Absences do not
Deplete the tavern. They hang over the haze
As exhalations from receded shores. Soon,
Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn
The notes hold sway, smoky
Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.
Young Bullfrogs
© Carl Sandburg
JIMMY WIMBLETON listened a first week in June.
Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois
Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs.
Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke,
The Sins of Kalamazoo
© Carl Sandburg
THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.
The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.
Prairie Waters by Night
© Carl Sandburg
CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running watersheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.
And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.
It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.
People With Proud Chins
© Carl Sandburg
I TELL them where the wind comes from,
Where the music goes when the fiddle is in the box.
KidsI saw one with a proud chin, a sleepyhead,
Fellow Citizens
© Carl Sandburg
I DRANK musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with
the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter
one night
And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,
Dancer
© Carl Sandburg
THE LADY in red, she in the chile con carne red,
Brilliant as the shine of a pepper crimson in the summer sun,
She behind a false-face, the much sought-after dancer, the most sought-after dancer of all in this masquerade,
The lady in red sox and red hat, ankles of willow, crimson arrow amidst the Spanish clashes of music,
Crapshooters
© Carl Sandburg
SOMEBODY loses whenever somebody wins.
This was known to the Chaldeans long ago.
And more: somebody wins whenever somebody loses.
This too was in the savvy of the Chaldeans.
