Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VILLONELLE, by MAX JACOB


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VILLONELLE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tell me the song that the sirens sang
Last Line: And my songs? May they come back to me!
Subject(s): Echoes; Melodies; Singing & Singers; Songs


Tell me the song that the sirens sang
When the Greeks plunged from their triremes, left their oars adrift.
Achilles, who captured Troy, they tell,
In a horse crammed with bronze,
Achilles led his armies well.
Yet he was caught by the melody
The maids of Hellas sang.
Tell me, Venus, I pray to thee,
What tune so sweetly rang?

A prisoner guarded in his cell
Sang so sadly, sang so well,
That ransomless they set him free,
Restored him to her who wept at the prisonside.

Nausicaä at the fountain,
Penelope in the hall,
Zeuxis over the housetops combing,
All sang folksongs in the gloaming. ...
And the cup-bearers' call!
Echoes of echoes over the plains
And the emigrants' refrains!
Where are the songs of the days gone by
Sung in a fashion now no more remembered?

Where are the pearly-toothed damosels
Who sang love under lock and key?
And my songs? May they come back to me!





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