Music poems
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Flight into Reality
© Rowley Rosemarie
Dedicated to the memory of my best friend Georgina, (1942-74)and to her husband Alex Burns and their childrenNulles laides amours ne belles prison -Lord Herbert of Cherbury
Ave! (An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, 1892)
© Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
I Wide marshes ever washed in clearest air,Whether beneath the sole and spectral star The dear severity of dawn you wear,Or whether in the joy of ample day And speechless ecstasy of growing JuneYou lie and dream the long blue hours away Till nightfall comes too soon,Or whether, naked to the unstarred night,You strike with wondering awe my inward sight, --
II Go forth to you with longing, though the yearsThat turn not back like your returning streams And fain would mist the memory with tears,Though the inexorable years deny My feet the fellowship of your deep grass,O'er which, as o'er another, tenderer sky, Cloud phantoms drift and pass, --You know my confident love, since first, a child,Amid your wastes of green I wandered wild
The Iliad, Book XII
© Alexander Pope
Furious he spoke, and rushing to the wall,Calls on his host; his host obey the call;With ardour follow where their leader flies:Redoubling clamours thunder in the skies
The Palace-Burner
© Piatt Sarah Morgan Bryan
She has been burning palaces. ."To see The sparks look pretty in the wind?." Well, yes .-And something more. But women brave as she Leave much for cowards such as I to guess.
The Christening
© Piatt Sarah Morgan Bryan
In vain we broider cap and cloak, and fold The long robe, white and rare;In vain we serve on dishes of red gold, Perhaps, the rich man's fare;In vain we bid the fabled folk who bring All gifts the world holds sweet:This one, forsooth, shall give the child to sing; To move like music this shall charm its feet; This help the cheek to blush, the heart to beat
A Satire, in Imitation of the Third of Juvenal
© John Oldham
Though much concern'd to leave my dear old friend,I must however his design commendOf fixing in the country: for were IAs free to choose my residence, as he;The Peak, the Fens, the Hundreds, or Land's End,I would prefer to Fleet Street, or the Strand
Ode
© O'Shaughnessy Arthur
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; --World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams:Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems
The Dance at McDougall's
© O'Hagan Thomas
In a little log house near the rim of the forest With its windows of sunlight, its threshold of stone,Lived Donald McDougall, the quaintest of Scotchmen, And Janet his wife, in their shanty, alone:By day the birds sang them a chorus of welcome, At night they saw Scotland again in their dreams;They toiled full of hope 'mid the sunshine of friendship, Their hearts leaping onward like troutlets in streams, In the little log home of McDougall's
Voice of the Twentieth Century
© Robert Norwood
Voice of our Century, whose heart is broken,Weeping for those who will not come again--Lord Christ! hast thou been crucified in vain?--Challenge the right of every Tyrant's token:The fist of mail; the sceptre; ancient, oakenCoffers of gold for which thy sons are slain;The pride of place, which from the days of CainHath for the empty right of Power spoken!
Be like a trumpet blown from clouds of doomAgainst whatever seeks to bind on earth;Bring from the blood of battle, from the wombOf women weeping for their dead, the birthOf better days with banishment of wrong,Love in all hearts, on every lip--a song
Darwin
© Robert Norwood
Eternal night and solitude of space;Breath as of vapour crimsoning to flame;Far constellations moving in the sameInvariable order and the paceThat times the sun, or earth's elliptic raceAmong the planets: Life--dumb, blind and lame--Creeping from form to form, until her shameBlends with the beauty of a human face!
Death can not claim what Life so hardly wonOut of her ancient warfare with the Void--O Man! whose day is only now begun,Go forth with her and do what she hath done;Till thy last enemy--Death--be destroyed,And earth outshine the splendour of the sun
One With The Sun
© Moritz Albert Frank
Childone with the sunin trackless fieldsof yellow grass and thistle, scentof humid heavy air and the wing musicof bees and flies.
Paradise Regain'd: Book IV (1671)
© John Milton
PErplex'd and troubl'd at his bad successThe Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope,So oft, and the perswasive RhetoricThat sleek't his tongue, and won so much on Eve,So little here, nay lost; but Eve was Eve,This far his over-match, who self deceiv'dAnd rash, before-hand had no better weigh'dThe strength he was to cope with, or his own:But as a man who had been matchless heldIn cunning, over-reach't where least he thought,To salve his credit, and for very spightStill will be tempting him who foyls him still,And never cease, though to his shame the more;Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr'd,Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;Or surging waves against a solid rock,Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew,Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end;So Satan, whom repulse upon repulseMet ever; and to shameful silence brought,Yet gives not o're though desperate of success,And his vain importunity pursues
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
© John Milton
This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing, That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace
There's Nae Luck about the House
© William Mickle
And are ye sure the news is true? And are ye sure he's weel?Is this a time to think o' wark? Mak haste, lay by your wheel;Is this the time to spin a thread When Colin's at the door?Reach me my cloak, I'll to the quay And see him come ashore
