Music poems
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In November by Lisel Mueller: American Life in Poetry #85 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The Illinois poet, Lisel Mueller, is one of our country's finest writers, and the following lines, with their grace and humility, are representative of her poems of quiet celebration.
Progression
© Francis Scarfe
See that satan pollarding a tree,
That geometric man straightening a road:
Surely such passions are perverse and odd
That violate windows and set the north wind free.
In London
© Dora Wilcox
When I look out on London's teeming streets,
On grim grey houses, and on leaden skies,
The Ruined Abbey, or, The Affects of Superstition
© William Shenstone
At length fair Peace, with olive crown'd, regains
Her lawful throne, and to the sacred haunts
The Eve Of Waterloo
© George Gordon Byron
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
New Year's Eve: A Waking Dream
© George MacDonald
I have not any fearful tale to tell
Of fabled giant or of dragon-claw,
The Bas Bleu: Or, Conversation. Addressed To Mrs. Vesey
© Hannah More
VESEY, of Verse the judge and friend,
Awhile my idle strain attend:
From Evangeline
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured,
Father, I thank thee!
Land-Locked
© Celia Thaxter
Black lie the hills; swiftly doth daylight flee;
And, catching gleams of sunset's dying smile,
Through the dusk land for many a changing mile
The river runneth softly to the sea.
St. Simon And St. Jude
© John Keble
Seest thou, how tearful and alone,
And drooping like a wounded dove,
The Cross in sight, but Jesus gone,
The widowed Church is fain to rove?
Cadenus And Vanessa
© Jonathan Swift
THE shepherds and the nymphs were seen
Pleading before the Cyprian Queen.
The counsel for the fair began
Accusing the false creature, man.
The Subway
© Allen Tate
Till broken in the shift of quieter
Dense altitudes tangential of your steel,
I am become geometries, and glut
Expansions like a blind astronomer
Dazed, while the worldless heavens bulge and reel
In the cold revery of an idiot.
Cease, Warring Thoughts
© James Shirley
Cease, warring thoughts, and let his brain
No more discord entertain,
But be smooth and calm again.
Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. The Musician's Tale; The Saga of King Olaf XVI. -- Queen Thuri And
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Northward over Drontheim,
Flew the clamorous sea-gulls,
Sang the lark and linnet
From the meadows green;
Hymns From The French Of Lamartine
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I.
"Encore un hymne, O ma lyre
Un hymn pour le Seigneur,
Un hymne dans mon delire,
Un hymne dans mon bonheur."
A Visit To Renelagh
© Robert Bloomfield
To Ranelagh, once in my life,
By good-natur'd force I was driv'n;
The Bridegroom Of Cana
© Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
VEIL thine eyes, O belovéd, my spouse,
Turn them away,
Lest in their light my life withdrawn
Dies as a star, as a star in the day,
As a dream in the dawn.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 01:
© Conrad Aiken
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
