Music poems
/ page 245 of 253 /
Prelude to an Unwritten Masterpiece
© Siegfried Sassoon
You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers;
Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns;
And Youth against the sun-rise ... Not profound;
But such a haunting music in the sound:
Do it once more; it helps us to forget.
Goblin Revel
© Siegfried Sassoon
They pause, and hushed to whispers, steal away.
With cunning glances; silent go their shoon
On creakless stairs; but far away the dogs
Bark at some lonely farm: and haply they
Have clambered back into the dusky moon
That sinks beyond the marshes loud with frogs.
To Leonide Massine in Cleopatra
© Siegfried Sassoon
O beauty doomed and perfect for an hour,
Leaping along the verge of death and night,
You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight
Four long years past, discovering pride and power.
Vision
© Siegfried Sassoon
I love all things that pass: their briefness is
Music that fades on transient silences.
Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall
They fling delight across the world; they call
Fight to a Finish
© Siegfried Sassoon
The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
To cheer the soldiers whod refrained from dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
This moment is the finest. (So they thought.)
At Daybreak
© Siegfried Sassoon
I listen for him through the rain,
And in the dusk of starless hours
I know that he will come again;
Loth was he ever to forsake me:
He comes with glimmering of flowers
And stir of music to awake me.
Ancestors
© Siegfried Sassoon
Behold these jewelled, merchant Ancestors,
Foregathered in some chancellery of death;
Calm, provident, discreet, they stroke their beards
And move their faces slowly in the gloom,
Before the Battle
© Siegfried Sassoon
Music of whispering trees
Hushed by a broad-winged breeze
Where shaken water gleams;
And evening radiance falling
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.
Haunted
© Siegfried Sassoon
Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had sucked the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.
To Victory
© Siegfried Sassoon
Return to greet me, colours that were my joy,
Not in the woeful crimson of men slain,
But shining as a garden; come with the streaming
Banners of dawn and sundown after rain.
Dead Musicians
© Siegfried Sassoon
. . . .
And so the song breaks off; and Im alone.
Theyre dead ... For Gods sake stop that gramophone.
Falling Asleep
© Siegfried Sassoon
Voices moving about in the quiet house:
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:
Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert.
A Mystic As Soldier
© Siegfried Sassoon
I lived my days apart,
Dreaming fair songs for God;
By the glory in my heart
Covered and crowned and shod.
Alone
© Siegfried Sassoon
Ive listened: and all the sounds I heard
Were music,wind, and stream, and bird.
With youth who sang from hill to hill
Ive listened: my heart is hungry still.
Blighters
© Siegfried Sassoon
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
Were sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!
The Death-Bed
© Siegfried Sassoon
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Limitations
© Siegfried Sassoon
If you could crowd them into forty lines!
Yes; you can do it, once you get a start;
All that you want is waiting in your head,
For long-ago youve learnt it off by heart.
Secret Music
© Siegfried Sassoon
I keep such music in my brain
No din this side of death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell.
The Dragon & The Undying
© Siegfried Sassoon
All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings
And beats upon the dark with furious wings;
And, stung to rage by his own darting fires,
Reaches with grappling coils from town to town;
Elegy
© Siegfried Sassoon
Your dextrous wit will haunt us long
Wounding our grief with yesterday.
Your laughter is a broken song;
And death has found you, kind and gay.
