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Subject: MUSIC & MUSICIANS
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UPDATE command denied to user 'poetryex_users'@'localhost' for table `poetryex_poems`.`subcnt` 19, by JAY WRIGHT    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In my binu shrine, the sogo altars pull me home
Last Line: And hear its cithara voice in the dye¯li's craft.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


A BOY'S WHISTLE, by JUDD MORTIMER LEWIS    Poem Text                    
First Line: If I could whistle like I used to when I was just a boy
Last Line: No use in tryin' when we're old, we've been away too long!
Subject(s): Lips; Memory; Music & Musicians; Sound; Whistles & Whistling


A CANARY AT THE FARM, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Folks has be'n to town, and sahry
Last Line: A high-priceter cage 'n that!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Canaries; Farm Life; Music & Musicians; Agriculture; Farmers


A CERTAIN MUJSIC, by MURIEL RUKEYSER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Never to hear, I know I know in myself
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Cantinflas (1911-1993)


A CITY PIPER, by MORRIS ABEL BEER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Whenever I see him pass this way
Last Line: Can leave behind a trail of light!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Pipers; Poetry & Poets


A CONCERT, by DOLLIE CAROLINE MAITLAND RADFORD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ah, was it all a fantasy
Last Line: All paradise is in the street.
Alternate Author Name(s): Radford, Ernest, Mrs.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A DOS'T O' BLUES, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I got no patience with blues at all!
Last Line: He's the same old color yit!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Blues (mood); Music & Musicians; Night; Seasons; Bedtime


A DREAM-SONG, by CARROLL RYAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A love-song died on my heart in a dream
Last Line: Will return and restore my dream.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ryan, William Thomas Carroll
Subject(s): Love - Loss Of; Melodies; Music & Musicians


A FANTASY, by GERARD LABRUNIE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an air that haunts me till I slight
Last Line: Whose image never from my soul can fade!
Alternate Author Name(s): Nerval, Gerard De
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


A FIDDLER'S VALENTINE, by ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Pretty player, from thy strings
Last Line: Kiss, and say good-bye to me!
Alternate Author Name(s): Q; Quiller-couch, A. T.
Subject(s): Fiddles; Holidays; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Valentine's Day


A FORGOTTEN TUNE, by PAUL VERLAINE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A frail hand hovering sets the keys astir
Last Line: Beyond the window where the garden blows?
Subject(s): Longing; Music & Musicians


A HARVEST SONG, by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O the mellow days of autumn
Last Line: And she sings the reaper's song.
Subject(s): Army - United States; Grief; Marching & Marches; Memory; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


A HEARTH SONG (TO THE OTHER ARMCHAIR), by HARRY TENNYSON DOMER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Here's a song for the dawn, for the noon
Last Line: And a song, aye the sweetest -- a love-song -- for you!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


A LULL IN LIFE, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, for a desert place with only the master's smile
Last Line: Blending the song of life with the thrill of the master's voice.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A MAN IN BLUE, by JAMES SCHUYLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Under the french horns of a november afternoon
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A MELOLOGUE UPON NATIONAL MUSIC: FLOURISH OF TRUMPET, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hark! 'tis the sound that charms
Last Line: Now melting mournful lose themselves in tears!
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Trumpets


A MELOLOGUE UPON NATIONAL MUSIC: GREEK AIR, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: List! 'tis a grecian maid that sings
Last Line: And every heart was freedom's altar.
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; National Song - Greece; Greek National Anthem


A MELOLOGUE UPON NATIONAL MUSIC: INTRODUCTORY MUSIC - HAYDN, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There breathes the language, known and felt
Last Line: Of human passion rise and fall for thee!
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A MELOLOGUE UPON NATIONAL MUSIC: SPANISH AIR, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hark! From spain, indignant spain
Last Line: O erin! Thine!
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; National Song - Spain; Spanish National Anthem


A MELOLOGUE UPON NATIONAL MUSIC: SWISS AIR, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: But wake the trumpet's blast again
Last Line: From slavery's slumber, breathes to liberty!
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; National Song - Switzerland; Swiss National Anthem


A MEMORY OF RUBINSTEIN, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He of the ocean is, its thunderous waves
Last Line: And broods above the rage one sphinx-like face.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Rubinstein, Anton (1829-1894)


A MOOD, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Words praising music, what are they but leaves
Last Line: Ever the same, with message never the same.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A MUSICAL, by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Outside the rain upon the street
Last Line: It sang in ecstasy.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN COLTRANE: PLAYED BY HIMSELF, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I don't remember train whistles
Last Line: I thought would bring me that sound.
Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians


A NEW WORLD, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: A new world calls, in voices loud and strange
Last Line: And music that was once an irish row.
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Alcoholism & Alcoholics; Music & Musicians; Drunkards; Alcohol Abuse


A PRELUDE, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Little conjurer of keys
Last Line: Little conjurer of keys.
Subject(s): Life; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Pianos; Singing & Singers; Soul; Songs


A RHYME OF MUSICIANS, by E. LEMKE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Handel, bendel, mendelssohn
Last Line: Homberg, plomberg, reinecke.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Rhyme


A RING OF CHANGES, by DENISE LEVERTOV    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Shells, husks, the wandering
Subject(s): Casals, Pablo (1876-1973); Dreams; Love; Nature; Music & Musicians; Relationships; Nightmares


A SINGING LESSON, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses
Last Line: Far-fetched and dear-bought.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Roundels; Soul


A SONG, by BRADFORD STEWART    Poem Text                    
First Line: The fairy music is silvery sweet
Last Line: In the love-lighted eyes of you.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Trumpets


A SONG FOR OCTOBER, by THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY    Poem Text                    
First Line: Fruitful october! So fair and calm
Last Line: Chords of my heart give back to thee!
Alternate Author Name(s): Daly, T. A.
Subject(s): Frost; Music & Musicians; October; Praise; Singing & Singers; Songs


A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, by JOHN DRYDEN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: From harmony, from heavenly harmony, / this universal frame began
Last Line: And music shall untune the sky.
Variant Title(s): St. Cecilia's Day;ode On Cecilia's Day;harmony;a Song For St. Cecilia's Day, 1687
Subject(s): Cecilia, Saint (3d Century); Music & Musicians; Saints


A SONG OF SUMMER, by RICHARD KENDALL MUNKITTRICK    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, the swish and the swash of the blue summer sea
Last Line: To the fish-ball's twin sister, the fragrant fried clam.
Subject(s): Mermaids & Mermen; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Summer; Symphonies; Concerts


A SYMPHONY, by HENRY MORGAN STONE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sweet melody with rippling hair
Last Line: Her ribbon-streaming tamborine.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A THREEFOLD TRIBUTE, by MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS    Poem Text                    
First Line: To tenderest affection
Last Line: With ripe luxuriance soon.
Subject(s): Beauty; Love; Music & Musicians; Summer


A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S, by ROBERT BROWNING    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, galuppi, baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
Last Line: Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
Subject(s): Galuppi, Baldassare (1706-1785); Music & Musicians


A TREE TELLING OF ORPHEUS, by DENISE LEVERTOV    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: White dawn. Stillness. When the rippling began
Subject(s): Environment; Music & Musicians; Trees; Environmental Protection; Ecology; Conservation


A TWILIGHT MUSING, by MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Ye who in this vain life
Last Line: Lighten and cheer?
Subject(s): Earth; Evening; Life; Music & Musicians; Tears; World; Sunset; Twilight


A WALTZ THOUGHT, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When a man's prime passion, for years on years
Last Line: Subtly shaping his witching waltz!
Subject(s): Dreams; Earth; Graves; Life; Love; Music & Musicians; Nature; Straw; Nightmares; World; Tombs; Tombstones


A YEAR'S CAROLS: JULY, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Hail, proud july, whose fervent mouth
Last Line: And midnight's rapturous plenilune.
Subject(s): July; Music & Musicians; Seasons


A' - SECOND MOVEMENT, by LOUIS ZUKOFSKY    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The clear music
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


A/COLTRANE/POEM, by SONIA SANCHEZ            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: My favorite things
Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians


AD VILMUM AXIOLOGUM, by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: This be the meed, that thy song creates a thousand fold echo!
Last Line: Love is the spirit of life, and music the life of the spirit. --
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ADA, by ARTHUR PETERSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I know when thou dost touch the keys
Last Line: Upon the master's scroll.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ADDRESS TO MUSIC, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh thou! Whose soft, bewitching lyre
Last Line: Enhance my joys and soothe my cares!
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ADELE AUS DER OHE, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What is her playing like?
Last Line: Too tender, even, for sorrow, and too bright for mirth!
Subject(s): Chopin, Frederic Francois (1810-1849); Liszt, Franz (1811-1886); Music & Musicians


ADVICE TO THE ORCHESTRA, by DAVID WAGONER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Start like pieces of string
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AFRICA, MUSIC AND SHOW BUSINESS, by ABDULLAH IBRAHIM    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Geography / so many theories of east and west abound
Last Line: And she scratched vaguely under her armpit.
Subject(s): Africa; Jazz; Music & Musicians


AFTER MUSIC, by JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I saw not they were strange, the ways I roam
Last Line: Would tell me who I was before I died.
Alternate Author Name(s): Marks, Lionel S., Mrs.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AFTER MUSIC, by JANET RAMSAY    Poem Text                    
First Line: Let life and its bewildering music stop
Last Line: Or unremembering songs, airs that are weightless.
Subject(s): Death; Music & Musicians; Silence; Dead, The


AFTER THE PLAY, by HAMILTON FISH ARMSTRONG    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: The great gold room is heavy with the scent
Last Line: Yet this day twenty thousand men have died.
Subject(s): Broadway, New York City; Music & Musicians; New York City - Theaters; Plays & Playwrights ; Dramatists


AFTER THE SYMPHONY, by CALE YOUNG RICE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The last finale had crashed
Last Line: Then slow sleep muted all to oblivion.
Subject(s): Grief; Happiness; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Youth; Sorrow; Sadness; Joy; Delight


AIRS SUNG AT BROUGHAM CASTLE: DIALOGUE SUNG THE FIRST NIGHT, by THOMAS CAMPION    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Tune thy cheerful voice to mine
Last Line: That hath our fortunes raised.
Subject(s): Food & Eating; Music & Musicians


ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC, by JOHN DRYDEN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas at the royal feast, for persia won
Last Line: She drew an angel down.
Variant Title(s): The Power Of Music;alexanders Plot;alexander's Feast; Or The Power Of Music: An Ode In Houour Of St
Subject(s): Alexander The Great (356-323 B.c.); Music & Musicians


ALICE ZENO TALKING, AND HER SON GEORGE LEWIS THE JAZZ CLARINETIST, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Now if all of you were gone
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Jazz; Lewis, George (1900-1968); Music & Musicians


ALL THESE MAKE MUSIC, by ANNA SHAW BUCK    Poem Text                    
First Line: Whose ear is tuned to rhythm nature gives
Last Line: That beats in tune with nature's rhythmic art.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ALMOST BLUE, by MARK DOTY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: If hart crane played the trumpet
Last Line: And you let to and why not
Subject(s): Baker, Chet (1929-1988); Jazz; Music & Musicians


AM/TRAK, by AMIRI BARAKA            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Trane / trane, history love scream on
Alternate Author Name(s): Jones, Leroi
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Davis, Miles (1926-1991); Jazz; Music & Musicians


AN ANTIQUE MUSICK, by HUGH WESTERN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Eyelids that lift like amethyst
Last Line: To bid me go.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN AUTUMNAL EXTRAVAGANZA, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: With a sweeter voice than birds
Last Line: On its highest minaret.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Autumn; Flowers; Music & Musicians; Roses; Seasons; Fall


AN HOUR, by DOROTHY CURRAN    Poem Text                    
First Line: I ask / but an hour of music
Last Line: Sung soft and low.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN HOUR IN A STUDIO, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Each picture was a painted memory
Last Line: They circled them with music in the night.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Paintings & Painters


AN ITALIAN SONNET-SEQUENCE: 11, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As one who plays a lovingly-held lyre
Last Line: Aye, fight and conquer yet in distant lands.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 1, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Descend, and with thy breath inspire my soul
Last Line: Love seems to flutter round on his aurora-wing.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 10, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The rage of pindar filled the sounding air
Last Line: The demon shook his steel with wild exulting yell.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 11, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: How light the strain when decked in vernal bloom
Last Line: All blended with the smile, that shone like early dew.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 12, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Their music ceased, - and rising from the throne
Last Line: Hung o'er the flying tones that on the zephyrs stole.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 13, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This prelude o'er, a solemn strain arose
Last Line: Quivering like lurid flames beneath the midnight sky.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 14, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The fury of the storm is howling by
Last Line: Glanced on his flying foe, and fixed his tooth of fire.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 15, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Struck by thy bounding quill, a mellow lay
Last Line: And hissed his pleasure, shrill as sounds the infant's wail.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 16, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At last a murmur trembled on the lyre
Last Line: And kissed the trembling chord that breathed the soothing strain.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 2, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh! Muse, who erst in tempe's flowery vale
Last Line: Page 278
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 3, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Reclined amid the woods that waved around
Last Line: A thousand heavenly harps seemed answering to the song.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 4, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Urania o'er her star-bespangled lyre
Last Line: And rolled their mighty orbs to music's sweetest sound.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 5, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Majestic clio touched her silver wire
Last Line: Now like the sighing breeze in silence melt away.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 6, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: But when erato brushed her flowery lute
Last Line: Or o'er her silken chords sweet notes of gladness rung.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 7, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: But oh melpomene! Thy lyre of woe
Last Line: To infant softness sunk, as breathed thy mournful lay.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 8, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: But when, calliope, thy loud harp rang
Last Line: And o'er him shrilly shrieked the demon of the grave.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN ODE TO MUSIC: 9, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Euterpe glanced her fingers o'er her lute
Last Line: Fluttering like fays that flit in luna's softened glow.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AN OLD SONG, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
First Line: You laugh as you turn the yellow page
Last Line: And fills my eyes with tears
Subject(s): Memory;music & Musicians


AN OLD TUNE, by GERARD LABRUNIE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an air for which I would disown
Last Line: In some forgotten life, long time gone by.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nerval, Gerard De
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ANNUS MIRABILIS, by PHILIP LARKIN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sexual intercourse began
Subject(s): Bands; Beatles, The; Love - Erotic; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


ANSWERS IN PROGRESS, by AMIRI BARAKA    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Can you die in airraid jiggle
Last Line: That's the way the fifth day ended.
Alternate Author Name(s): Jones, Leroi
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


APOSTROPHE TO JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (PRESTISSIMO), by NATHAN HASKELL DOLE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Some who hear are rapt away
Last Line: Of paradisal days!
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians


APPRECIATION, by FRANK DAYTON ERVIN STOWE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Play o'er again the theme of melody
Last Line: And make our recognition known.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ervin, Dayton
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ART PEPPER, by EDWARD HIRSCH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It's the broken phrases, the fury inside him
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Pepper, Art (1925-1982)


ARTIST'S LIFE, by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Of all the waltzes the great strauss wrote
Last Line: I am always finding -- you.
Alternate Author Name(s): Wilson, Robert, Mrs.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Life; Music & Musicians


AS IF, by DAVID IGNATOW    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The prayerful humanity of bach
Last Line: To make a whole of it
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Violence; Contradictions; Life


AT A CONCERT OF MUSIC, by CONRAD AIKEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Be still, while the music rises about us; the deep enchantment
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AT A SOLEMN MUSIC, by JOHN MILTON    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy
Last Line: To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.
Variant Title(s): At A Solemn Musick
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AT BEETHOVEN'S FUNERAL, by IGNAZ FRANZ CASTELLI    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ev'ry tear that is shed by the mourner is holy
Last Line: The grisly destroyer is distanced by him.
Alternate Author Name(s): Castelli, J. F.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Funerals; Music & Musicians; Burials


AT BEETHOVEN'S GRAVE, by IGNAZ FRANZ CASTELLI    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: From the high rock I marked a fountain breaking
Last Line: That thou may'st live, o deathless one, thou diest.
Alternate Author Name(s): Castelli, J. F.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Graves; Music & Musicians; Tombs; Tombstones


AT THE CONCERT, by RAY CLARKE ROSE    Poem Text                    
First Line: The leader waved his light baton
Last Line: And scarlet plumes and silver dresses.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Symphonies; Concerts


AT THE HALF NOTE CAFE (VERSION A), by IRA SADOFF    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Once I heard him play
Subject(s): Ammons, Gene (1925-1974); Jazz; Music & Musicians


AT THE HALF NOTE CAFE (VERSION B), by IRA SADOFF    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Once I heard him play
Subject(s): Ammons, Gene (1925-1974); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Restaurants; Cafes; Diners


AT THE PIANO, by ARTHUR PETERSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Beneath her touch the keys take life
Last Line: And capture me.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


AT THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC AND ...., by REETIKA VAZIRANI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Maestro plays a raga at dusk
Subject(s): India; Music & Musicians


AUBADE OF THE SINGER AND SABOTEUR, MARIE TRISTE, by NORMAN DUBIE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: In the twenties, I would visit dachau often with my brother
Last Line: Two of the old miracles. They were not my choices.
Subject(s): Brothers & Sisters; Concentration Camps; Dachau, Germany; Flowers; Music & Musicians; World War Ii - Atrocities


AUGUST THIRD, by YVONNE FLORENCE    Poem Text                    
First Line: We are so near the music
Last Line: And be free!
Subject(s): Dreams; Life; Music & Musicians; Soul; Nightmares


AUTOCHTHONIC TERCET: 1, by CESAR VALLEJO    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The laborer's fist becomes velvet
Last Line: A modern sun-god for the peasant
Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Music & Musicians; Wine


AUTUMN'S ORCHESTRA, by EMILY PAULINE JOHNSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Know by the thread of music woven through
Last Line: Shall voice my answering. Good-night, good-night.
Alternate Author Name(s): Tekahionwake
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Nature; Sound


AUX ETOILES, by LEONA TRAIN RIENOW    Poem Text                    
First Line: One day I wrote a little song
Last Line: How little is the world of men!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


BACH, by CHARLES BUKOWSKI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I'm / listening to a work of his
Last Line: Living / friends
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians


BACH, by ZITELLA COCKE    Poem Text                    
First Line: As some cathedral vast, whose lofty spire
Last Line: Strong to achieve, and faithful to endure!
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians


BACH TRANSCRIBING VIVALDI, by LISEL MUELLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One remembered the sunrise, how clearly it gave
Alternate Author Name(s): Muller, Lisel
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians


BACH'S B MINOR MASS, by ROBERT BLY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The walgravian ancestors step inside trinity church
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Churches; Cathedrals


BACH'S ORGAN WORKS, by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Chance-child of some lone sorrow on the hills
Last Line: Wails far along the passages of death.
Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, T. E.
Variant Title(s): To E. M. O.
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians


BACH, IN THE FUGUES AND PRELUDES, by WILLIAM WATSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Contentedly with strictest [or rigorous] strands confined
Last Line: Or roll against the stars their rock-bound song.
Alternate Author Name(s): Watson, John William
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians; Science; Scientists


BACKGROUND AND DESIGN, by KAREN SWENSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: On tv in a bangkok shop window
Last Line: From fiend to lover and back.
Subject(s): Culture Conflict; Music & Musicians; Thailand


BAGEL SHOP JAZZ, by BOB KAUFMAN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Shadow people, projected on coffee-shop walls
Last Line: Brief, beautiful shadows, burned on walls of night
Subject(s): Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; United States; America


BAGPIPE MUSIC, by FREDERICK LOUIS MACNEICE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: It's no go the merry-go-round, it's no go the rickshaw
Alternate Author Name(s): Macneice, Louis
Subject(s): Bagpipes; Blavatsky, Helena P. (1831-1891); Depressions, Economic; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Scotland; Theosophy; Recessions


BALLAD OF THE BELLS, SELECTION, by PAUL FORT    Poem Text                    
First Line: Ah! What joy, the bagpipe and the flute touch our hearts
Last Line: Then in quaint pattern guarded them from sight.
Subject(s): Bells; Brides; Churches; Marriage; Music & Musicians; Cathedrals; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


BALSHAM BELLS, by KENRICK PRESCOT    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sweet waft their rounds those tuneful brothers five
Last Line: Expiring notes—they and these lines are done.
Subject(s): Feasts; Festivals; Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Orpheus; Sound; Fairs; Pageants


BAND CONCERT, by CARL SANDBURG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Band concert public square nebraska city
Last Line: These know more of the story.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


BANDSTAND, by MICHAEL S. HARPER            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Monk's dissonant hat
Last Line: Who could dance
Subject(s): Jazz; Monk, Thelonious (1917-1982); Music & Musicians


BANJO MINE, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Now the gloom of a mist-laden evening
Last Line: "then go back to your leathern case, banjo, / while my thought goes beyond your control"
Subject(s): Banjos;music & Musicians;musical Instruments


BARTHELEMON AT VAUXHALL, by THOMAS HARDY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: He said: 'awake my soul, and with the sun'
Last Line: It spread to galleried naves and mighty quires.
Subject(s): Barthelemon, Francois Hippolite; Music & Musicians


BATTERY, by ANNE WALDMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A trio of instruments you love the notes
Last Line: Into eyes of love with eyes of love
Subject(s): Love; Man-woman Relationships; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Male-female Relations


BATTLE REPORT, by BOB KAUFMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One thousand saxophones infiltrate the city
Last Line: The city falls.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


BE-BOP BOYS, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Imploring mecca
Last Line: With decca.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


BEAGLE OR SOMETHING, by APRIL BERNARD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The composer's name was beagle or something
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


BECAUSE I AM; IN MEM. SIDNEY BECHET, 1897-1959, by HAYDEN CARRUTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Because I am a memorious old man
Last Line: Out of the reaches of the impermeable night.
Subject(s): Bechet, Sidney Joseph (1897-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN, by ETHEL TONRY CARPENTER    Poem Text                    
First Line: In the cool and silent night
Last Line: He goes!
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians; Symphonies; Concerts


BEETHOVEN, by ZITELLA COCKE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sublimest master, thou, of harmony
Last Line: With something of thy pure, celestial fire.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN, by JOHN FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: That midnight pause, when the deep forest / hushes
Last Line: Shakes the wet boughs of the dark—again—again.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Grief; Music & Musicians; Nature; Night; Sorrow; Sadness; Bedtime


BEETHOVEN, by SARAH MARGARET FULLER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Most intellectual master of the art
Last Line: Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine again!
Alternate Author Name(s): Fuller, Margaret; Ossoli, Marchioness; Ossoli, Margaret Fuller
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN, by ALINE NEFF    Poem Text                    
First Line: Nature planning, years creating
Last Line: Lonely, answering god's call back.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


BEETHOVEN, by LUCY H. KING SMITH    Poem Text                    
First Line: A prince of music with a builder's art
Last Line: The notes and symphonies he gave.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN, by JOHN TODHUNTER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Music as of the winds when they awake
Last Line: By violets. Thus beethoven speaks for me.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN (DEAF), by JOHN BANISTER TABB    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: So, he who samson-like of sound
Last Line: A prisoner remains.
Alternate Author Name(s): Father Tabb
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN (VIENNA - 1900), by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I came to a great city. Palaces
Last Line: And his the empire of the human soul.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians; Vienna


BEETHOVEN AND ANGELO, by JOHN BANISTER TABB    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: One made the surging sea of tone
Last Line: Raised children unto god.
Alternate Author Name(s): Father Tabb
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564); Music & Musicians; Worship


BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK, by ALFRED NOYES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The thousand-windowed towers were all alight
Last Line: With his own grief, and his own majesty.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Central Park, New York City; Composers; Dreams; Grief; Music & Musicians; Nations; Nightmares; Sorrow; Sadness


BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH SYMPHONY, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: The mind's deep history here in tones is wrought
Last Line: And turns to boundless hope the old despair.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians; Mind, The


BEETHOVEN'S MUSIC TO FAUST, by HENRY JOHNSON (1855-1918)    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O god of loving mercy, wilt thou deign
Last Line: —fetch me my book and leave me here alone.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Faust; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN'S SEVENTH SYMPHONY, by LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The dead christ starts, the shadows lift, the light
Last Line: Drawing the worshipping ages in ecstasy after.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN'S SIXTH SYMPHONY (ANDANTE), by ANNIE (ADAMS) FIELDS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sounding above the warring of the years
Last Line: Like children standing there.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN'S THIRD SYMPHONY, by RICHARD HOVEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Passion and pain, the outcry of despair
Last Line: And love makes life triumphant and divine.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


BEETHOVEN, OPUS 111, by AMY CLAMPITT                        Poet's Biography
First Line: Or, conversely, hungers
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Millet, Jean Francois (1814-1875); Music & Musicians; Piranesi, Giambattista (1720-1778)


BELIEVE, BELIEVE, by BOB KAUFMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Believe in this. Young apple seeds
Last Line: Rising above the mushroom time
Subject(s): Social Commentary; Music & Musicians; Materialism; War


BELLS, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: The worlds march on and circle in their place
Last Line: Could name the guilty world that's out of tune.
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Bells; Music & Musicians


BEYOND WORDS, by KEVIN YOUNG    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: If you bomb / the ind
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; City & Town Life; Social Commentaries; Popular Culture - United States


BHIKSHU'S SONG, by DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A bhikshu at the door
Last Line: Cease not to smile
Subject(s): Buddhism; Music & Musicians; Buddha; Buddhists


BIG ANNIE ROONEY, by GERALD STERN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Counting the beats in a different way he used
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


BIG FURRY BUDDHA IN BACK YARD, by ANSELM HOLLO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It's a made-up name
Last Line: Bat is flutterer fluttermouse
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Symphonies; Concerts


BIRD, by JOY HARJO    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The moon plays horn, leaning on the shoulder of the dark universe
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955)


BIRD LIVES': CHARLES PARKER IN ST. LOUIS, by MICHAEL S. HARPER            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Last on legs, last on sax
Last Line: "bird lives! Bird lives! And you do:
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955)


BLACK BOYS PLAY THE CLASSICS, by TOI DERRICOTTE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Subject(s): African American Children; Music & Musicians; Race Awareness


BLUEHAWK, by ANNE WALDMAN            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Monk's gone
Subject(s): Jazz; Monk, Thelonious (1917-1982); Music & Musicians


BLUES, by DEREK WALCOTT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Those five or six young guys
Subject(s): Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians


BLUES FOR BYZANTIUM, by CLAYTON ESHLEMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Clangs of yeats like blues
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939)


BLUES FOR JOHN COLTRANE, DEAD AT 41, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Although my house floats on a lawn
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians


BMP BMP, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Lugubriously enough they're playing
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Bechet, Sidney Joseph (1897-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians


BORN TODAY, by ANSELM HOLLO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Is to be one to the one
Last Line: Hold that frame
Subject(s): Birth; Music & Musicians; Child Birth; Midwifery


BOUND NO'TH BLUES, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Goin' down the road, lawd
Last Line: Fit fer a hoppin' toad.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Blues (mood); Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


BRAHMS, NO. 2 D MAJOR, OP. 73, by GRACE HAZARD CONKLING    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now take this music: loose the sombre strands:
Last Line: Say if you can I never loved you so.
Subject(s): Brahms, Johannes (1833-1897); Music & Musicians; Sympathy; Empathy


BRENDEL PLAYING SCHUBERT, by LISEL MUELLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: We bring our hands together
Alternate Author Name(s): Muller, Lisel
Subject(s): Brendel, Alfred; Music & Musicians


BRIEF MOMENT, by FAITH EVELYN PACKARD    Poem Text                    
First Line: You ask me what I saw? / it would be hard to
Last Line: I startled you just then.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Time


BROKEN BACK BLUES, by ROBERT CREELEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: O yr facing reality now
Last Line: It is a hopeless world
Subject(s): Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians


BROKEN RHYTHMS; IN A MEXICAN LABOR CAMP, by AMANDA MATHEWS CHASE    Poem Text                    
First Line: La golondrina
Last Line: New music?
Subject(s): Chicanos; Migrant Labor; Music & Musicians; Mexican Americans; Migratory Workers; Agricultural Laborers


BUD POWELL, 1925-1966, by CLAYTON ESHLEMAN            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The notice, dead at 41, kings county hospital, reached me at 20 when
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


BUD POWELL, PARIS, 1959, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I'd never seen pain for bland
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Paris, France; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966)


BUNK JOHNSON BLOWING, by MURIEL RUKEYSER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: They found him in the fields and called him back to music
Last Line: We three slid down that san francisco hill
Subject(s): Jazz; Johnson, Bunk (1889-1949); Ledbetter, Huddie [leadbelly] (1888-1949; Music & Musicians; Leadbelly


BUNK JOHNSON'S GRAVE AT NEW IBERIA, by JONATHAN WILLIAMS            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Mr. Weeks, please don't bury me among them
Subject(s): Graves; Jazz; Johnson, Bunk (1889-1949); Music & Musicians; Tombs; Tombstones


BURLESQUE, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The footlights glint, the house is set
Last Line: They have played plays in heaven?'
Subject(s): Bands; Burlesque; Criticism & Critics; Dancing & Dancers; Music & Musicians; Plays & Playwrights; Singing & Singers; Orchestras; Striptease


BUT, RUBY MY DEAR, by WANDA COLEMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: He hikes those narrow chords one more time
Last Line: Of discordant fusion / scaling
Alternate Author Name(s): Coleman-straus, Wanda
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


CABARET, by STERLING ALLEN BROWN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Rich, flashy, puffy-faced / hebrew and anglo-saxon
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Jazz; Music & Musicians


CADENZA DIMINUENDO, by LILLIAN LOGAN KEAN    Poem Text                    
First Line: There came the trembling of a tune
Last Line: The two red apples fell.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


CAN YOU HEAR IT?, by THERESA DRULEY BLACK    Poem Text                    
First Line: Oh the daintiness of music
Last Line: When the heart is filled with love.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


CANARY, by RITA DOVE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Billie holiday's burned voice
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Drugs & Drug Abuse; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Narcotics; Opium; Cocaine; Crack; Heroin; Songs


CANNON ARRESTED, by MICHAEL S. HARPER            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Somethin' else and / kind of blue
Last Line: Wickered in vestibule, drifting away
Subject(s): Adderly, Cannonball (1928-1975); Jazz; Music & Musicians


CANTATA, by MATTHEW PRIOR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Beneath a verdant laurel's ample shade
Last Line: Cupid does with phoebus reign.
Subject(s): Cupid; Love; Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Singing & Singers; Venus (goddess); Eros


CANZONE, by ROBERT CREELEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: As would any sound make
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


CAOCH THE PIPER, by JOHN KEEGAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: One winter's day, long, long ago
Last Line: God rest you! Caoch o'leary.
Subject(s): Blindness; Music & Musicians; Visually Handicapped


CAT SCAT, by EAMON GRENNAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I am watching cleo listening, our cat
Last Line: Does , or can, the cat
Subject(s): Cats; Music & Musicians


CAVATINA, by JEFFREY LEVINE    Poem Text                    
First Line: It may be there's a time of day when everything
Subject(s): Beaujolais Wine; Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Love - Nature Of; Music & Musicians; Obsessions


CEOL SIDHE, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When may is here, and every morn
Last Line: And all is melody.
Subject(s): Fairies; May (month); Music & Musicians; Elves


CHAMBER MUSIC: 1, by JAMES JOYCE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Strings in the earth and air
Last Line: Upon an instrument.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Rivers


CHANGE OF MOOD, by HAROLD BERGMAN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Tonight, walking down main street
Last Line: And fancy-free.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


CHASING THE BIRD, by ROBERT CREELEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sun sets unevenly and the people
Last Line: To me a mangle is.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955)


CHOOSING HYMNS, by JOHN FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We sat and sang our hymns. The sweet- / mouthed organ
Last Line: The young naked moon couched on the hawthorn's breast.
Subject(s): Hymns (as Literary Form); Music & Musicians


CHOPIN, by EMMA LAZARUS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Last Line: Hell!
Subject(s): Chopin, Frederic Francois (1810-1849); Music & Musicians


CHOPIN, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: Such notes he chose!
Last Line: Down the years.
Subject(s): Chopin, Frederic Francois (1810-1849); Love; Music & Musicians


CHOPIN'S 'SONATA IN B MINOR' (JACQUES ABRAM), by JR. DARK ROBERT L.    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sound prismed in jet globules were encased
Last Line: Pellucid immortality ears conceive.
Subject(s): Abram, Jacques (1915-1998); Music & Musicians


CHRISTMAS BELLS, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
First Line: The years come not back that have circled away
Last Line: "of solemn joy, o christmas bells!"
Subject(s): Bells;christmas;happiness;music & Musicians; "nativity, The;joy;delight;


CHURCH-MUSICK [CHURCH MUSIC], by GEORGE HERBERT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure
Last Line: You know the way to heavens doore.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


CITY ELEGIES: 4. STREET MUSIC, by ROBERT PINSKY    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweet babylon, headphones. Song bones.
Subject(s): City & Town Life; Music & Musicians


CODA, by EUGENE JOLAS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Midnight blossoms like a rose
Last Line: A violin dies away on the venus-wharf.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


COLEMAN HAWKINS (D. 1969). RIP, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: As if that sax
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Hawkins, Coleman (1904-1969); Jazz; Music & Musicians


COLTRANE, SYEEDA'S SING FLUTE, by JEAN VALENTINE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: To marilyn, to peter, / playing, making things: the walls, the stairs
Last Line: Up to the shins, up the eyes, / closed over
Subject(s): Children; Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Childhood


CONCENTRATION CAMP BLUES, by HENRY DUMAS            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I ain't jokin people, I aint playin around
Subject(s): Ghettos; Jazz; Music & Musicians


CONCERT BY STRINGS, by ENID CRAWFORD PIERCE    Poem Text                    
First Line: They played the cesar franck quintet
Last Line: Left us enrapt, with every question answered.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Symphonies; Concerts


CORAL-MUSIC, THE SUNSET WRITES ON THE SCROLL OF THE SEA, by DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI                        Poet's Biography
Last Line: Dancing the measure of evening worship
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


COSSIMBAZAR, by HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come fleetly, come fleetly, my hookabadar
Last Line: Join in the chorus, my hookabadar.
Subject(s): India; Jungles; Music & Musicians; Nonsense


COUNTRY MUSIC, by WILLIAM A. PHELON    Poem Text                    
First Line: We sit in the rural gloaming
Last Line: From the sounds we hear at home!
Subject(s): Country Life; Music & Musicians


COUPLE AT THE CLUB, by PAMELA ALEXANDER    Poem Text                 Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: The bass goes it alone. The bass goes
Alternate Author Name(s): Alexander, Pam
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


COUSIN MARY, by WANDA COLEMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Goes way back to the days/my father a young man
Last Line: Her song to me across years
Alternate Author Name(s): Coleman-straus, Wanda
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


CRADLED IN MUSIC, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A bright young mother, day by day
Last Line: And in this faith we live and die.
Subject(s): Children; Music & Musicians; Childhood


CREPUSCULE WITH NELLIE, by CHARLES SIMIC    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Monk at the five spot
Subject(s): Jazz; Monk, Thelonious (1917-1982); Music & Musicians


CRIPPLED, by MARION PELTON GUILD    Poem Text                    
First Line: Beethoven deaf, and milton blind!
Last Line: Crippled or no, we dare the race!
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Milton, John (1608-1674); Music & Musicians; Physical Disabilities; Wellesley College; Handicapped; Handicaps; Physically Challenged; Cripples


DANCE OF THE INFIDELS; IN MEMORY OF BUD POWELL, by ALBERT JAMES YOUNG    Poem Source                    
First Line: The smooth smell of manhattan taxis
Last Line: I love you
Alternate Author Name(s): Young, Al
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966)


DEAD MUSICIANS, by SIEGFRIED SASSOON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: From you, beethoven, bach, mozart
Last Line: They're dead ... For god's sake stop that gramophone.
Subject(s): Germany; Music & Musicians; Soldiers' Writings; World War I; Germans; First World War


DEAR JOHN, DEAR COLTRANE, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sex fingers toes / in the marketplace
Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians


DEXTER GORDON: COPENHAGEN/AVERY FISHER HALL, by KAREN SWENSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Last time I listened I turned thirty-six
Last Line: Leaving nothing left to play.
Subject(s): Gordon, Dexter (1923-1990); Memory; Music & Musicians; Saxophones


DIALOGUE ON PADERBORN HEATH, by HEINRICH HEINE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hear'st thou not far music ringing
Last Line: What my bosom holds within it?
Subject(s): Grief; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


DISSONANCE ROYAL TRAVELLER, by BARBARA GUEST    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sound opens sound
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


DISSONANCES, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oft in the midst of music rare
Last Line: They were a part of the melody.
Subject(s): Air; Harps; Life; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Lyres


DISTANT MUSIC, by JOHN DRINKWATER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Far now from you, dear love, I know
Last Line: The cause of all that you have told.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


DON'T SAY GOODBYE TO THE PORKPIE HAT, by LARRY NEAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Don't say goodbye to the porkpie hat that rolled
Last Line: This time from the top
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


DOVE NOTES, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The soft, strange note of the doves, to what
Last Line: Like melody heard under water, or music dimmed by a dream.
Subject(s): Doves; Memory; Music & Musicians


DREAM, by MARIANNE MOORE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The committee - now a permanent body
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Dreams; Music & Musicians; Universities & Colleges - Faculty; Nightmares


DREAM BOOGIE, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Good morning, daddy!
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


DRIVING THE BIG CHRYSLER ACROSS THE COUNTRY OF MY BIRTH, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I would wait for the tunnels
Last Line: In this sunship from motown.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


DRUM CRAZY, by CALVIN FORBES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The year of the drummer
Last Line: Of his bout against drums
Subject(s): Drums; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


DRUMMER YOUNG, by RICHARD FROST    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Baltimore, forty years ago- / west fayette, a corner bar
Subject(s): Baltimore, Maryland; Music & Musicians


DURING MUSIC, by JOHN BOWYER BUCHANAN NICHOLS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Play on, play on: we have no need of light
Last Line: Your smile more lovely than the first-born star.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nichols, Bowyer
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


DURING MUSIC, by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The music had the heat of blood
Last Line: Or mine in hers had read.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


EACH MORE MELODIOUS NOTE I HEAR, by HENRY DAVID THOREAU    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: Who would the music be
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


EIGHT FOR ORNETTE'S MUSIC, by KENNETH REXROTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: If the pain is greater
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians; Trust; Coleman, Orenette (1930-2012


EL GALLO, by WITTER BYNNER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: They waited, sleeping, on the plaza benches
Last Line: I laughed aloud, joining bright earth with earth.
Alternate Author Name(s): Morgan, Emanuel
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ELEANORE, by RICHARD SOLOMON GEDNEY                        Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweet eleanore! - fair eleanore!'
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Sound; Voices; Songs


ELEANORE, by RICHARD SOLOMON GEDNEY                        Poet's Biography
First Line: Not the star - / the golden-winged herald of the morn
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Sound; Voices; Songs


ELEGY, by MARILYN HACKER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Crying from exile, I
Last Line: Alone, you are dead
Subject(s): Jazz; Joplin, Janis (1943-1970); Music & Musicians


ELEGY, by BILL ZAVATSKY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Music your hands are no longer here to make
Last Line: From the spring of song that never stops its kiss
Subject(s): Evans, Bill (1929-1980); Jazz; Music & Musicians


ELEGY ON THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING, by DAVID WAGONER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In my mother's garden even the ragweed
Last Line: At everything we can still remember
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Old Age; Spring


ELEVATOR MUSIC, by HENRY SPLAWN TAYLOR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A tune with no more substance than the air,
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ELVIN'S BLUES, by MICHAEL S. HARPER            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sniffed, dilating my nostrils
Last Line: With only itself to love
Subject(s): Drugs & Drug Abuse; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Sex; Jones, Elvin (1927-2004); Narcotics; Opium; Cocaine; Crack; Heroin


EPIGRAM ON THE FEUDS BETWEEN HANDEL AND BONONCINI, by JOHN BYROM    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Some say, compared to bononcini
Last Line: Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee!
Variant Title(s): Epigram On Handel And Bononcini
Subject(s): Bononcini, Giovanni Battista (1670-1747); Handel, George Frideric (1685-1759); Music & Musicians


ERIC DOLPHY, by ANNE WALDMAN            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Out to lunch'
Subject(s): Dolphy, Eric (1928-1964); Jazz; Music & Musicians


ESSIPOFF, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What is her playing like?
Last Line: By wandering mortal, who forgets his heavy woes.
Subject(s): Essipoff, Annette (1855-1937); Music & Musicians; Esipova, Anna Nikolayevna


ETERNITY BLUES, by HAYDEN CARRUTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I just had the old dodge in the shop
Last Line: To reach me. I drove on. Then I bust out crying
Subject(s): Blues (mood); Country Life; Music & Musicians


EUTYCHIDES, by LUCILIUS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Eutychidus, who wrote the songs, / is going down where he belongs
Last Line: Where's a poor tortured soul to dwell?
Alternate Author Name(s): Lucillius; Carus Titus Lucilius
Variant Title(s): Variations Of Greek Themes: 4. Eutychides
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


EVEN MUSIC, by DORIANNE LAUX    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Drive toward the juan de fuca strait
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Saxophones; Singing & Singers; Women; Songs


EVENING CONCERT, SAINTE-CHAPELLE, by JOHN UPDIKE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The celebrated windows flamed with light
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


EVENING MUSICALE, by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Candles, red tulips, ninety cents the bunch.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hayden, Charles, Mrs.
Variant Title(s): Recipe For An Evening Musicale
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


EVENTIDE, by VALERY YAKOVLEVICH BRYUSOV    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The posters shout, their gorgeous motley blares
Last Line: Oh, cover thy pale feet!
Alternate Author Name(s): Brusov, Valery Yakovlevich
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Music & Musicians; Parties


EYAM, by ANNA SEWARD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: For one short week I leave, with anxious heart
Last Line: Dim apparition thou! -- and bitter in my tear.
Alternate Author Name(s): Seward, Nancy
Subject(s): Memory; Music & Musicians


FAIRY MUSIC, by ROSE FYLEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the fiddlers play their tunes you may sometimes hear
Last Line: In tender, limpid melodies that charm the hearts of men.
Subject(s): Fairies; Music & Musicians; Elves


FANTASIA ON CLAVIERS AT NIGHT, by HERBERT TRENCH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I watch'd a white-hair'd figure like a breeze
Last Line: "thou hast another day!"
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Travel


FANTASY, by GERARD LABRUNIE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an air for which I'd give all else
Last Line: In that remembered other life I had.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nerval, Gerard De
Subject(s): Fantasy; Music & Musicians; Reincarnation; Transmigration; Pretas


FANTASY, by GERARD LABRUNIE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an air for which I'd gladly give
Last Line: And whom I now remember with a sigh.
Alternate Author Name(s): Nerval, Gerard De
Subject(s): Fantasy; Music & Musicians; Reincarnation; Transmigration; Pretas


FAR - FAR - AWAY (FOR MUSIC), by ALFRED TENNYSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: What sight so lured him through the fields he knew
Last Line: Far -- far -- away?
Alternate Author Name(s): Tennyson, Lord Alfred; Tennyson, 1st Baron; Tennyson Of Aldworth And Farringford, Baron
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


FIDDLE TIME, by DAVID BOTTOMS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Off the fiddle of a man who rented a garage from my father
Last Line: Not quite lost, over the curve of a finely honed bridge.
Subject(s): Children; Memory; Music & Musicians; Passion; Childhood


FIDDLER'S FAREWELL, by LEONORA SPEYER    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Fold now the song within the songster
Last Line: Above your tuneless sobbing?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Violins


FIRST BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 7, by THOMAS CAMPION    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: To music bent is my retired mind
Last Line: Such heat they cast as lifts the spirit high.
Subject(s): Consolation; Music & Musicians


FIT AUDIENCE, by MARIE PONSOT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: (andante cantabile): / g sharp is not g natural
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Composers


FLATTED FIFTHS, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Little cullud boys with beards
Last Line: And dig all plays.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


FLORETTY'S MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: All seemed delighted, though the elders more
Last Line: Gathered himself. And thus his story ran.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


FLUTE-PRIEST SONG FOR RAIN; CEREMONIAL AT THE SUN SPRING, by AMY LOWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Whistle under the water
Last Line: With tumult of rain.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


FLUTEPLAYERS FROM FINMARKEN, by CARL RAKOSI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: How keen the nights were
Alternate Author Name(s): Rawley, Callmann
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


FOO TO THE INFINITE, by CLAYTON ESHLEMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Play vanilla,' lester young is said
Last Line: "play vanilla, I say to him, and he to me: ""play dead."
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Young, Lester ('prez') (1909-1959)


FOR BUD; FOR BUD POWELL, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Could it be, bud
Last Line: Enough for you
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966)


FOR MILES, by GREGORY NUNZIO CORSO    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Your sound is faultless
Last Line: Yet unimaginable score?
Alternate Author Name(s): Corso, Gregory
Subject(s): Davis, Miles (1926-1991); Jazz; Music & Musicians


FOR MUSIC, by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Along the shore, along the shore
Last Line: Forever and forever.
Alternate Author Name(s): Mulock, Dinah Maria
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


FOR SIDNEY BECHET, by PHILIP LARKIN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes
Subject(s): Bechet, Sidney Joseph (1897-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians


FOR STEVE, by DENISE LEVERTOV    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The morning after your midnight death
Last Line: Which runs full tilt into absence
Subject(s): Death; Mourning; Music & Musicians


FOUR FRIENDS, by LEO WARD    Poem Text                    
First Line: Full life, sweet rest, great love that cannot cease
Last Line: And nature one with god, at nazareth!
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Franck, Cesar (1822-1890); Music & Musicians


FOURTH BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 8, by THOMAS CAMPION    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: To his sweet lute apollo sung the motions of the spheres
Last Line: And phœbus' right-revenged grudge.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Pan (mythology)


FREEDOM AND DISCIPLINE, by HAYDEN CARRUTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Saint harmony, many / years I have stript
Subject(s): Discipline; Freedom; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Liberty


GET UP, BLUES, by JAMES ANDREW EMANUEL                        Poet's Biography
First Line: Blues / never climb a hill
Subject(s): Blues (mood); Jazz; Music & Musicians


GHAZALS: 1, by JAMES HARRISON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Unbind my hair, she says. The night is white and warm
Last Line: And a new sun to guide us, a holy book, tracked in new blood.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Dreams; Imaginary Conversations; Music & Musicians; Night; Nightmares; Bedtime


GIDEON'S BAND, by LEVI BISHOP    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, what is this unearthly noise
Last Line: For every dog must have his day.
Subject(s): Animals; Horses; Life; Music & Musicians


GIRL AT THE PIANO, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: Such slender fingers
Last Line: And lo, the practice hour has hurried by!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Pianos


GIRLS' MIDDLE SCHOOL ORCHESTRA, by MICHAEL RYAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Subject(s): Girls; Schools; Music & Musicians; Students


GIROFLE-GIROFLA, by ARTHUR PETERSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The violinist draws his bow, / the harper touches string
Last Line: From memory till I die.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


GIVE ME A SINGING HEART, by GERTRUDE B. GUNDERSON    Poem Text                    
First Line: Give me a singing heart to free my life
Last Line: Through inert shadows and through futile days.
Subject(s): Contentment; Hearts; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


GLENN GOULD, by STANLEY PLUMLY    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I heard him that one night in cincinnati
Subject(s): Gould, Glenn; Music & Musicians


GLORY, by MARIANNE MOORE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It spreads, the campaign - carried on
Variant Title(s): Carnegie Hall: Rescued
Subject(s): Carnegie Hall, New York City; Landmark Preservation; Music & Musicians; Stern, Isaac (1920-2001)


GO GREYHOUND, by HICOK. BOB    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A few hours after des moines
Last Line: Of the human condition, that the baby
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


GOD'S HARP, by GUSTAV FALKE    Poem Text                    
First Line: The wind, stirring in the dark foliage, brings
Last Line: Hark, what a tone of love passed through the night.
Subject(s): Love; Melodies; Music & Musicians


GONE, BUT HERE, by JOHN FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: She was here, and she is gone
Last Line: Of life be done?
Subject(s): Farewell; Love - Loss Of; Man-woman Relationships; Music & Musicians; Parting; Male-female Relations


GYPSY KINGS, by LINDA GREGG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Another late afternoon and I am sitting in
Last Line: One mentioned her own son
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Conduct Of Life


GYPSY SONG, by HELEN PRICE    Poem Text                    
First Line: What is it within me that's yearning to go
Last Line: To shatter the sky like a comet at night.
Subject(s): Birds; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


HAIKU: 2, by ETHERIDGE KNIGHT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The piano man
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HANDEL, by CARL RAKOSI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The piccolo of heaven
Alternate Author Name(s): Rawley, Callmann
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HANDEL'S LARGO, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the great organs, answering each to each
Last Line: Living, and prayer, and praising and thanksgiving!
Subject(s): Handel, George Frideric (1685-1759); Music & Musicians


HANS CARVEL, by MATTHEW PRIOR    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Hans carvel, impotent and old
Last Line: You've thrust your finger g-d knows where!
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians; Passion; Singing & Singers


HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, by EMILY HENRIETTA HICKEY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Happy-go-lucky, you darling, and is it
Last Line: Which mary has nurtured for jesus, and one day will give him to wear.
Subject(s): Contentment; Music & Musicians


HARK, TEN THOUSAND HARPS AND VOICES!, by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, strong and sweet these tones that seek the sky!
Last Line: Till unto god who hears his whole world sings.
Alternate Author Name(s): Chandler, Ellen Louise
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Worship


HARLEM, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I want to sing harlem on an ebony flute
Last Line: "rest, and dream, my dark delight!"
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Harlem (new York City); Music & Musicians


HARLEM GALLERY: BOOK 1, THE CURATOR: MU, by MELVIN BEAUNORUS TOLSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Hideho heights / and I, like the brims of old hats
Last Line: Of the indigo combo.
Alternate Author Name(s): Tolson, Melvin
Variant Title(s): The Harlem Gallery: Mu
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Harlem (new York City); Jazz; Music & Musicians


HARMONICS, by WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: This string upon my harp was best beloved
Last Line: Gave to the dim harmonics voice and tongue?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HARMONIES, by ANNA BUNSTON DE BARY    Poem Text                    
First Line: No hammer fell, no heavy axe was heard
Last Line: In soundless beauty to the sun-god's lute.
Subject(s): Birds; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


HARMONY, by FRANCES HALLEY BROCKETT    Poem Text                    
First Line: Ah, the hours when life goes singing
Last Line: Than in days when the golden melody
Subject(s): Love; Melodies; Music & Musicians


HASSAN'S MUSIC, by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Land of delight! You did not hold us long
Last Line: Sailed down to tarsus to mark antony.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HEALING ANIMAL, by JOY HARJO    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: On this day when you have needed to sleep forever
Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


HEARING MUSIC, by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When lovely sounds about my ears
Last Line: Or wake in paradise.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hunt, Leigh
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HEART NOT SO HEAVY AS MINE, by EMILY DICKINSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: I pray you pass once more
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HEART OF THE GAEL, by MARIE MANCINO    Poem Text                    
First Line: I have never seen the heather
Last Line: Of the pipes played by the lads in bonnets blue.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


HELLO, by BRIAN TEARE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HENRY PURCELL, by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Have fair fallen, o fair, fair have fallen
Last Line: Off him, but meaning motion fans fresh our wits with wonder.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Purcell, Henry (1659-1695)


HER LIGHT CUITAR, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: She twankled a tune on her light
Last Line: Rippled in glee up my spell-bound spine.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Flowers; Guitars; Music & Musicians; Roses; Stars


HERE IS MUSIC: DEDICATION TO G.V.S., by AUSTIN PHILIPS    Poem Text                    
First Line: O, vedi napoli,' (so the italians say
Last Line: "e poi muori!"
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Naples, Italy; Singing & Singers; Travel; Journeys; Trips


HERE WHERE COLTRANE IS, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Soul and race
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians


HIGH CHURCH, by TIMOTHY LIU    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Notes lodged inside a second-hand
Last Line: So hard the mute flew out of his horn
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


HIS LEGACY, by TIMOTHY LIU    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: But a voice blowing away the dust
Last Line: Voice in which no recordings survived
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Social Commentaries


HISTORIOGRAPHY, by LORENZO THOMAS    Poem Source                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The junkies loved charles parker and the sports
Last Line: 1974).
Subject(s): Drugs & Drug Abuse; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955); Narcotics; Opium; Cocaine; Crack; Heroin


HOLLYWOOD JAZZ, by LYNDA HULL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who says it's cool says wrong
Last Line: Here. Take my arm, walk with me
Alternate Author Name(s): Wojahn, David, Mrs.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


HOMAGE TO LITERATURE, by MURIEL RUKEYSER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When you imagine trumpet-faced musicians
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


HOMAGE TO THE EMPRESS OF THE BLUES, by ROBERT EARL HAYDEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Because there was a man somewhere in a candystripe silk shirt
Subject(s): African Americans; African Americans - Women; Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Smith, Bessie (1894-1937); Negroes; American Blacks; Songs


HONORS: 2. THE ANSWER, by JEAN INGELOW    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste
Last Line: My work, my work -- farewell!
Subject(s): Death; Flutes; God; Honor; Labor & Laborers; Life; Music & Musicians; Dead, The; Work; Workers


HOW LIKE A HARP, by MARGARETTE BALL DICKSON    Poem Text                    
First Line: How like a harp with quivering silver strings
Last Line: The distant music never sound again.
Subject(s): Harps; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Lyres


HOW POETS PLAY, by CONDE BENOIST PALLEN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: How do poets play?
Last Line: Swoon in fainting silences away.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Rhyme; Singing & Singers


HUSH!, by MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS    Poem Text                    
First Line: To music we listen
Last Line: Sung there.
Subject(s): Dreams; Music & Musicians; Nature; Truth; Youth; Nightmares


I CHING, by DIANE DI PRIMA    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Mountain & lake
Last Line: That they lean against
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Taylor, Cecil (b. 1929)


I LIVE IN MUSIC, by NTOZAKE SHANGE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Alternate Author Name(s): Williams, Paulette
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


I SEE CHANO POZO, by JAYNE CORTEZ    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A very fine conga of sweat
Last Line: I see chano pozo
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


I SHALL PLAY A LITTLE SONG ON MY PIPE IN THE SPRING, by ANNETTE WYNNE    Poem Text                    
Last Line: Who do not know what spring is for, as we know, pipe and I
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Spring


I WAS MOVING ..., by GREGORY ORR    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I was moving down the bank / toward the boat, lost
Last Line: Chin propped on fists, listening.
Subject(s): Eurydice (nymph); Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Orpheus


I WON'T BE MY FATHER'S JACK, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
Last Line: "prithee, love, play me / t'other little tune"
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


I, OR SOMEONE LIKE ME, by MARVIN BELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In a wilderness, in some orchestral swing
Subject(s): Forests; Music & Musicians; Vision; Woods


IDYLL 3. A PASTORAL ON THE DEATH OF BION, by MOSCHUS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ye vales, and doric floods, or fount, or rill
Last Line: And from dun night redeem thy sacred shade.
Subject(s): Bion (2nd Century B.c.); Death; Flutes; Grief; Lament; Mourning; Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Nature; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness; Bereavement


IF POETRY WERE NOT A MORALITY, by TESS GALLAGHER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I'm the kind of woman who
Last Line: As joy, as more horses than we need
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Horses; Grandparents; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers


IMAGES SUGGESTED BY MEDIEVAL MUSIC, by ROBERT BLY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Once more
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


IMPROMPTU TO A YOUNG LADY PLAYING, by ROYALL TYLER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If now timotheus were alive
Last Line: We think ourselves in heaven.
Alternate Author Name(s): Old Simon; S.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


IMPROVISATION, by PAUL S. NICKERSON    Poem Text                    
First Line: Out from the silence
Last Line: Until the hour for sleep . . .
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Organs (musical Instruments)


IN A MUSEUM, by THOMAS HARDY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Here's the mould of a musical bird long passed from light
Last Line: In the full-fugued song of the universe unending.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


IN BLOSSOMS WRIT, by JOHN MILTON SCOTT    Poem Text                    
First Line: It seems amid the orange trees you play
Last Line: To wing and woo the music heart of you.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


IN HOSPITAL: 23. MUSIC, by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Down the quiet eve
Last Line: Airs of london.
Alternate Author Name(s): Henley, W. E.
Subject(s): Hospitals; Music & Musicians


IN MEMORIAM A.M.W.; SEPTEMBER, 1910 (FOR A SOLEMN MUSIC), by GORDON BOTTOMLEY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Out of a silence
Last Line: Into a silence.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


IN RECOMPENSE, by GERTRUDE B. GUNDERSON    Poem Text                    
First Line: I crave a sentient soul-in recompense
Last Line: The voice of god throughout his universe.
Subject(s): Melodies; Music & Musicians


IN THE MUSIC COMPOSED BY NUTRITIOUS ALGAE, by ANSELM HOLLO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thought lined up pale winter
Last Line: Question, indeed
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians


IN THE SHADOWS, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The silent music of the flowers
Last Line: Against my name which was a shade.
Subject(s): Books; Flowers; Music & Musicians; Reading


IN THE SOUTH, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a princess in the south
Last Line: Would blossom as a lily might.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Beauty; Faces; Music & Musicians; Night; Southern States; Bedtime; South (u.s.)


IN THE TRADITION, by AMIRI BARAKA    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Blues walk weeps ragtime
Last Line: Death to the klan!
Alternate Author Name(s): Jones, Leroi
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


INSPIRED MUSIC, by LYDIA KEEFER HALEY    Poem Text                    
First Line: Inspired music, language of the spheres ineffable
Last Line: And lift us up toward god.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PLAYER, by CARL RAKOSI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Cellist, / easy on that bow
Alternate Author Name(s): Rawley, Callmann
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC, by SARAH MARGARET FULLER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The charms of melody, in simple airs
Last Line: Blesses our earth-bound state with visions of supernal day.
Alternate Author Name(s): Fuller, Margaret; Ossoli, Marchioness; Ossoli, Margaret Fuller
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


INTERLUDE (ALLEGRO), by NATHAN HASKELL DOLE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Now swells a martial symphony
Last Line: Whoever knew its talisman!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


INWARD MUSIC, by JOHN KEBLE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: There are in this loud [or, rude] stunning tide
Last Line: Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.
Variant Title(s): Happiness
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD, by MARILYN NELSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: How easily my heart falls back into habits
Alternate Author Name(s): Waniek, Marilyn Nelson
Subject(s): Anxiety; Jazz; Music & Musicians


ITALIAN MUSIC IN DAKOTA (THE SEVENTEENTH - THE FINEST REGIMENTAL BAND), by WALT WHITMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Through the soft evening air enwinding all
Last Line: Listens well pleas'd.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


JAM SESSION, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Letting midnight / out on bail
Last Line: Pop-a-da
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


JAN KUBELIK, by CARL SANDBURG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Your bow swept over a string, and a long low note
Last Line: (all the girls in bohemia are laughing on a sunday afternoon in the hills with their lovers.)
Subject(s): Kubelik, Jan (1880-1940); Music & Musicians


JANUARY AFTERNOON, WITH BILLIE HOLIDAY, by LISEL MUELLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Her voice shifts as if it were light
Alternate Author Name(s): Muller, Lisel
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


JAPAN - ABOUT 1877, by JACK MERTEN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Bewildered blue dragon-flies
Last Line: "hail, columbia!"
Subject(s): Inventions And Inventors; Music & Musicians; Printing And Printers; Telegraph; Telegrams


JAZZ BAND, by FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Play the thing, you jazz mad fools!
Last Line: Play the thing, you jazz mad fools!
Subject(s): Bands; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


JAZZ DRUMMER, by ETHERIDGE KNIGHT            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Max roach / has fire and steel in his hands
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Roach, Max (b. 1924)


JAZZ FANTASIA, by CARL SANDBURG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos
Subject(s): Jazz; Language; Music & Musicians; Words; Vocabulary


JAZZ STATION, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Above the freeway, over the music,
Last Line: In squat pigeontoes, and this beach ball sings
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


JAZZONIA, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, silver tree!
Last Line: Six long-headed jazzers play.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


JUBILEE HYMN, by JOHN BETJEMAN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In days of disillusion
Last Line: Ring out loud the jubilee.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Elizabeth Ii, Queen Of England; Music & Musicians; Performing Arts - Spain; Singing & Singers; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Songs


KOL NIDRE, by JOSEPH LEISER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Lo! Above the mournful chanting
Last Line: Breathing but the breath of ages.
Subject(s): Fasts & Feasts; God; Jews; Music & Musicians; Yom Kippur; Judaism


KOL NIDRE, by MAX OSIAS    Poem Text                    
First Line: In lonely hours of thought I long
Last Line: O hymn of israel.
Subject(s): Israel; Jews; Music & Musicians; Thought; Judaism; Thinking


LA MUSICA TRIONFANTE, by THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the storm, in the smoke, in the fight I come
Last Line: Hear the voices of heaven through the men heaven hath crowned.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LANGUAGE OF MUSIC, by ESTHER EUGENIA DAVIS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Two open windows where I went to sing
Last Line: But music just begins where language ends.
Subject(s): Language; Music & Musicians; Sound; Words; Vocabulary


LATESUMMER BLUES, by KENNETH PATCHEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Well, the grass is a pleasant thing
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


LE JAZZ HOT, by ANSELM HOLLO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Talked to my father again in a dream he seemed happy
Last Line: And found it of some interest
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


LEIPZIG, 1894, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: We have only one portrait of bach - that genius
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians


LESTER LEAPS IN, by ALBERT JAMES YOUNG    Poem Source                    
First Line: Nobody but lester let lester leap
Last Line: In order to blow what it's like being born.
Alternate Author Name(s): Young, Al
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Young, Lester ('prez') (1909-1959)


LET'S ALL HEAR IT FOR MILDRED BAILEY, by JAMES SCHUYLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: The men's can at cafe society uptown
Last Line: In a world gone wrong.
Subject(s): Bailey, Mildred [rinker] (1907-1951); Jazz; Music & Musicians


LIFE AND DEATH, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What, then, is life, - what death?
Last Line: Death but the pause between.
Subject(s): Death; Life; Music & Musicians; Dead, The


LIFE-MUSIC, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sound, jocund strains; on pipe and viol sound
Last Line: Sweet as the songs of spring.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Seasons


LIKE CITIES, LIKE STORMS, by AUGUST KLEINZAHLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: A foot off the ground, / but holding
Subject(s): Cities; Music & Musicians; Memory


LIKE CLEAR MUSIC, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Long-buried women, ye arise for me
Last Line: And do but freshen with the fall of years.
Subject(s): Life; Music & Musicians; Tears; Women


LINER NOTES TO AN IMAGINARY PLAYLIST, by TERRANCE HAYES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Wind solo' by the felonious monks
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM, by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Nor cold, nor stern, my soul! Yet I detest
Last Line: Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LINES SUGGESTED BY HEARING MUSIC ON THE BOSTON COMMON, by THOMAS COLE (1801-1848)    Poem Text                    
First Line: Music it was I heard, and music too
Last Line: The cave of silence their eternal tomb.
Subject(s): Boston; Music & Musicians


LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF MY HORN, by HENRY DUMAS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LISTENING, by AMY LOWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Tis you that are the music, not your song
Last Line: One music with a thousand cadences.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LISTENING TO LESTER YOUNG, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It's 1958. Lester young minces
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Young, Lester ('prez') (1909-1959)


LISTENING TO MUSIC (RUBINSTEIN'S 'OCEAN SYMPHONY'), by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When on that joyful sea
Last Line: Think back, dear love; o love, think back to me.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Rubinstein, Anton (1829-1894)


LISTENING TO SONNY ROLLINS AT THE FIVE-SPOT, by PAUL BLACKBURN    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: There will be many other nights like
Last Line: A-noth—
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Rollins, Sonny (b. 1930)


LITTLE FUGUE, by SYLVIA PLATH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The yew's black fingers wag
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Ted, Mrs.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LITTLE PIERRE'S SONG, by WILLIAM MCGONAGALL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In a humble room in london sat a pretty little boy
Last Line: And he came to be one of the most talented composers of the day.
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Symphonies; Concerts


LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, by BILL ZAVATSKY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: For forty years now, ever since
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Evans, Bill (1929-1980)


LIVES, by DAVID IGNATOW    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Bessie’s face lingers before me
Last Line: And as if speaking for me
Subject(s): Women; Music & Musicians; Fathers & Daughters; Perseverance


LOS ANGELES, 1954, by DAVID ST. JOHN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It was in the old days,
Subject(s): Love - Cultural Differences; Music & Musicians


LOST FUGUE FOR CHET, by LYNDA HULL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A single spot slides the trumpet's flare then stops
Alternate Author Name(s): Wojahn, David, Mrs.
Subject(s): Alcoholism & Alcoholics; Baker, Chet (1929-1988); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Drunkards; Alcohol Abuse


LOVE AND MUSIC, by PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I listen'd to the music broad and deep
Last Line: I heard love thrilling through the void profound.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


LOVE POEM, by AUGUST KLEINZAHLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: As long as the cat comes home
Last Line: Out of notes, dying.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


LOVE'S INCONSISTENCIES, by DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why closed thou thine eyes
Last Line: Song doth not die!
Subject(s): Hearts; Love; Music & Musicians


LOVE'S MELODY, by BARBARA MARIE BOOTH    Poem Text                    
First Line: In my soul the bells are ringing
Last Line: In the chiming of the bells.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


LOVIN YOU IS ECSTASY TO ME, by NTOZAKE SHANGE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: 25 years w/ the art ensemble
Last Line: Lovin you is ecstasy to me
Alternate Author Name(s): Williams, Paulette
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


LYRA MYSTICA, by THOMAS WALSH    Poem Text                    
First Line: Song, since thou wilt not grasp
Last Line: That fail'st us never, lead thy minstrels on.
Alternate Author Name(s): Gill, Roderick; Strange, Garrett
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MA RAINEY, by STERLING ALLEN BROWN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When ma rainey comes to town
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; African Americans - Women; Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Rainey, Ma (1886-1939); Singing & Singers; Women; Songs


MAC DUNCAN, TROMBONIST, by CHRISTOPHER WISEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A wall of silence. Nobody willtalk,
Last Line: Be dealt with by cheap evasions, and puns
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MACDOWELL, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rejoice! Rejoice!
Last Line: The new world hath new music -- and a voice!
Subject(s): Composers; Macdowell, Edward (1860-1908); Music & Musicians


MADAGASCAR: AUBADE, by WILLIAM DAVENANT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The lark now leaves his watery nest
Last Line: Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn!
Alternate Author Name(s): D'avenant, William
Variant Title(s): Song;song To His Mistress
Subject(s): Dawn; Music & Musicians; Sunrise


MADRIGAL: HARK JOLLY SHEPHERDS, by THOMAS MORLEY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hark jolly shepherds
Last Line: With echoes sweet rebounding.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Happiness; Music & Musicians; Joy; Delight


MAESTRO, by PAT MORA    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: He hears her
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Mothers


MAN LISTENNG TO DISC, by BILLY COLLINS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: This is not bad
Last Line: As he would be with us today
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MARINE, by EDITH SITWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Pink faces (worlds or flowers or seas or stars)
Last Line: Disturb the general somnolence.
Subject(s): Fireworks; Music & Musicians


MARSYAS, by CHARLES GEORGE DOUGLAS ROBERTS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A little grey hill-glade, close-turfed, withdrawn
Last Line: Divinely inaccessible, the scorn.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical


MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA, by ROBERT BROWNING    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Last Line: Do I carry the moon in my pocket?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Life


MASTER OF MUSIC (IN MEMORY OF THEODORE THOMAS), by HENRY VAN DYKE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Glory of architect, glory of painter, and sculptor, and bard,
Last Line: The glory of music endures in the depths of the human soul.
Alternate Author Name(s): Civis Americanus
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Thomas, Theodore (1835-1905)


MELODY IN A RESTAURANT, by CONRAD AIKEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: My errand is not so simple as it seems
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Restaurants


MIDNIGHT MUSIC, by JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAND    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What wakes me from my heavy sleep
Last Line: Good night, o mother dear!'
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Night; Sleep; Bedtime


MINGUS AT THE SHOWPLACE, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Jazz; Mingus, Charles (1922-1979); Music & Musicians; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons


MONOCHROME, by BERTON BRALEY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Your beauty is as subtle as a strain
Last Line: Brazen as cymbals, boisterous as drums!
Subject(s): Drums; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


MOOD INDIGO, by IRA SADOFF    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I've tried to trace the reverie
Subject(s): Blues (mood); Music & Musicians


MORE MUSIC, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, for a burst of song
Last Line: When one great alleluia song shall chase life's tuneless dream!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MORE THAN NEW, by LINDA GREGG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One of the men begins to sing. The woman
Last Line: A mouth singing, your heart the way it was
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Goddesses & Gods


MORNING AFTER, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I was so sick last night I
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


MOTHER OF HEROES (SARAH BLAKE SHAW), by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Mother of heroes, she, - of them who gave
Last Line: And when I think on music -- lo, her face!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MOTLEY: MUSIC, by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When music sounds, gone is the earth I know
Last Line: The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ramal, Walter; De La Mare, Walter
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MOUNTAIN FROLIC, by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS    Poem Text                    
First Line: In working clothes with song and whoop and shout
Last Line: Shot dead for dancing with his pal's best girl.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Festivals; Guns; Murder; Music & Musicians; Fairs; Pageants


MOZART, 1935, by WALLACE STEVENS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Poet, be seated at the piano
Last Line: Be seated, thou.
Subject(s): Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791); Music & Musicians


MOZARTIAN AIR, by JOHN FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Your name to know I cared not
Last Line: Bids youth and childhood back again.
Subject(s): Man-woman Relationships; Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791); Music & Musicians; Voices; Male-female Relations


MUCH IN LITTLE, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Just seven little notes
Last Line: All passion from hell to heaven.
Subject(s): Heaven; Hell; Music & Musicians; Passion; Paradise


MUSIC, by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My being is abosrbed in bliss so high
Alternate Author Name(s): Roge, Mme.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thou, oh, thou!
Last Line: Above the silence of a monster grave.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by WILL CHAMBERLAIN    Poem Text                    
First Line: God placed within the soul of rain
Last Line: On angel lips in paradise.
Subject(s): Heaven; Music & Musicians; Paradise


MUSIC, by JOHN VANCE CHENEY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Take of the maiden's, of the mother's sigh
Last Line: And let the finger touch that moveth all.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by HILDA CONKLING    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If I think music
Last Line: Into change.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by ELIZA COOK    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh! Music! Gentle music!
Last Line: A foretaste of the bliss above!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: Let fortune gift on gift bestow
Last Line: And never thought death lived -- that day.
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: O restless fingers - not that music make!
Last Line: Rises the goddess from the waves dark blue.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ramal, Walter; De La Mare, Walter
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by RALPH WALDO EMERSON    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Let me go where'er I will, / I hear a sky-born music still
Last Line: There alway, alway something sings.
Variant Title(s): Something Sings;there Alway, Alway Something Sings;the Sky-born Music
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Religion; Theology


MUSIC, by RICHARD GARNETT (1835-1906)    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Soft as a flash of summer light
Last Line: And go I know not where.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by CLARA BOYNTON HADLEY    Poem Text                    
First Line: Is it not a means by which we connect
Last Line: While we bow in grateful praise.
Subject(s): Magic; Music & Musicians; Praise


MUSIC, by BERNIE PARKER HARP    Poem Text                    
First Line: It floods my soul
Last Line: Hands for keys.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Move on, light hands, so strongly, tenderly
Last Line: Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Interminable undulating weeds
Last Line: And lifts it up from what lies dark below.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by AMY LOWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The neighbor sits in his window and plays the flute
Subject(s): Flutes; Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by WILLIAM MOTHERWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Strange how the mystically mingled sound
Last Line: The passionate clasping of their azure arms!
Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, Isaac
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by ARTHUR PETERSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: His light baton the leader waves
Last Line: Am I, with heaven my dwelling-place.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I see small difference
Last Line: Have flown an evening's journey.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cornwall, Barry; Proctor, Bryan Waller
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Before the dawn is yet the day
Last Line: Or but a dream astray.
Alternate Author Name(s): Duclaux, Madame Emile; Darmesteter, Mary; Robinson, A. Mary F.
Subject(s): Immortality; Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by JAMES RENNELL RODD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What angel viol, effortless and sure
Last Line: Dies into rest.
Alternate Author Name(s): Rennell, 1st Baron
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by CLINTON SCOLLARD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is an organ in my elm
Last Line: These airs of out-of-doors!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Nature


MUSIC, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I pant for the music which is divine
Last Line: Invites to love with her kiss divine --
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by HORACE SMITH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Peace to the tenants of the tomb
Last Line: As brightly as its morn and noon.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): Friendship; Life; Music & Musicians; Peace


MUSIC, by EDITH MATILDA THOMAS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The god of music dwelleth out of doors
Last Line: The god of music dwelleth out of doors.
Variant Title(s): The God Of Music
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by HENRY DAVID THOREAU    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Far from this atmosphere that music sounds
Last Line: At some late day unto himself again.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by HENRY VAN DYKE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Daughter of psyche, pledge of that wild night
Last Line: Break on the shore of light in endless hymns of praise.
Alternate Author Name(s): Civis Americanus
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC, by W. C. A. WALLAR    Poem Text                    
First Line: The instruments remind us. Then the heart
Last Line: Shall rise, and find the stars, and sin no more.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Religion; Theology


MUSIC, by ORVILLE GOULD WHEELER    Poem Text                    
First Line: I like the music even of my dreams
Last Line: And softly usher in the gentle night.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC AND FRIENDSHIP, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thrice is sweet music sweet when every word
Last Line: To share that heavenly joy, one dear, dear friend!
Subject(s): Friendship; Music & Musicians


MUSIC AND MEMORY, by JOHN ALBEE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Enchantress, touch no more that strain
Last Line: Still bringing all the pain they cost.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Transcendentalism


MUSIC AND MEMORY (TO K.W.), by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Across the tides of music, in the night
Last Line: Music in music, in the night.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC AND POETRY: 1, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sing, poets, as ye list, of fields, of flowers
Last Line: In human speech such mysteries divine.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


MUSIC AND POETRY: 2, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Yet words though weak are all that poets own
Last Line: One aim, one work, one destiny they share.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Life; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


MUSIC AND WORDS, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This day I heard such music that I thought
Last Line: Fulfilled with all of sorrow save its pain.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC AT A DEATHBED, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Bring music! Stir the brooding air
Last Line: My dream shall be fulfilled.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC AT EVENING, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: All of my dreams float down those silvery notes
Last Line: And see the brightness of the evening stars.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC AT TWILIGHT, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, give me music in the twilight hour!
Last Line: And mystery divine.
Subject(s): Evening; Music & Musicians; Sunset; Twilight


MUSIC FROM SHORE, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A sound comes on the rising breeze
Last Line: Give sweet sounds to the breeze!
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC HALL, by NICOLAS BEAUDIN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Crowd with alcoholic eyes
Last Line: High evening, bored by the apotheosis.
Subject(s): Bands; Collective Behavior; Music & Musicians; Theater & Theaters; Violins; Orchestras; Mobs; Crowds; Stage Life


MUSIC IN AN AVENUE, by CARA ELIZABETH HANSCOM WHITON STONE    Poem Text                    
First Line: I knew the minstrel not, and yet I knew
Last Line: That all the coming centuries shall know.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC IN CAMP, by JOHN REUBEN THOMPSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Two armies covered hill and plain
Last Line: Gave this one touch of nature.
Alternate Author Name(s): Thompson, John Randolph
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Patriotism; War


MUSIC IN DARKNESS, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At the dim end of day
Last Line: "in that mysterious night."
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC IN MOONLIGHT, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Was ever music lovelier than to-night!
Last Line: Fashions, supreme, of life, and fate, and time.
Subject(s): Moon; Music & Musicians; Schumann, Robert Alexander (1810-1856)


MUSIC IN SOLITUDE, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In this valley far and lonely
Last Line: That comes -- ah, surely comes -- at music's solemn call.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Solitude; Loneliness


MUSIC IN THE FLAT, by ELLA WHEELER WILCOX    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When tom and I were married, we took a little flat
Last Line: And so in spite of my resolve, I do not play at all.
Alternate Author Name(s): Wilson, Robert, Mrs.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Neighbors


MUSIC IN THE NIGHT, by HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When stars pursue their solemn flight
Last Line: And vanishes among the stars.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC IN THE SOUL, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Over my soul the great thoughts roll
Last Line: "wonderful, beautiful, soft, and slow"
Subject(s): Music & Musicians;soul


MUSIC IN VENICE, by LOUIS SIMPSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Dismiss the instruments that for your pleasure
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Venice, Italy


MUSIC IS HUMAN, by LARRY EIGNER            Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC IS TIME, by JILL BIALOSKY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Music is time, said the violin master.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC MYSTERY, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tell me, o music, why the bliss you bring
Last Line: "born to be beautiful -- but born to die."
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Pain; Suffering; Misery


MUSIC OF HUNGARY, by ANNE REEVE ALDRICH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My body answers you, my blood
Last Line: God made my soul for hungary!
Subject(s): Dvorak, Antonin (1841-1904); Hungary; Music & Musicians


MUSIC OF THE RAIN, by IRENE MCDERMOTT    Poem Text                    
First Line: Slow music haunts the falling drops of rain
Last Line: Are nature's lullaby to men at night.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC OF YESTERDAY, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The chord, the harp's full chord is hushed
Last Line: Ere this we know.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, by ANNE BRONTE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Music I love - but never strain
Last Line: Will lead us home to god again.
Alternate Author Name(s): Bell, Acton
Subject(s): Christmas; Music & Musicians; Nativity, The


MUSIC ON THE TIN ROOF, by GERALDINE FAY GRAY    Poem Text                    
First Line: The snow is melting - eaves begin to drip
Last Line: Just water dripping on the roof in spring.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Snow


MUSIC ON WATER, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Where does remembrance weep when we forget?
Last Line: Watches the time, and thinks it wondrous slow.
Subject(s): Death; Mars (god); Music & Musicians; Water; Dead, The


MUSIC ROOM DUET, by ROYALL HENDERSON SNOW    Poem Text                    
First Line: Turn from me then, if so you must!
Last Line: That ends not this side of heaven.
Subject(s): Life; Music & Musicians


MUSIC SWIMS BACK TO ME, by ANNE SEXTON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Wait mister. Which way is home?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC TO ME, by ADELE SHAW BOONE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Music to my soul
Last Line: Which I seek whene'er I can.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Sound


MUSIC'S ECHO, by JOHN FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In my ears it grew
Last Line: Upon the breast of day.
Subject(s): Dreams; Music & Musicians; Nightmares


MUSIC'S EMPIRE, by ANDREW MARVELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: First was the world as one great cymbal made
Last Line: Would with you heavens hallelujahs raise.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC'S TRAGEDY, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: Had birds no season for their precious songs
Last Line: Is there no quiet place to sleep or rest?
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Birds; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


MUSIC, FR. TWELFTH NIGHT, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: If music be the food of love, play on
Last Line: That it alone, is high fantastical.
Subject(s): Love - Nature Of; Music & Musicians


MUSIC, THOU QUEEN OF SOULS, by THOMAS RANDOLPH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Music, thou queen of souls, get up and string
Last Line: Strike a sad note, and fix them trees again.
Variant Title(s): A Song
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Trees


MUSIC: AN ODE, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Was it light that spake from the dark- / ness, or music that shone from the word
Last Line: In tune.
Subject(s): Life; Morning; Music & Musicians


MUSIC; AND THE SAVAGE BREAST, by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I'd read the kaiser's note
Last Line: .... I thank you, band of germans.
Alternate Author Name(s): F. P. A.
Subject(s): Bands; German Americans; Holidays; Memorial Day; Music & Musicians; Patriotism; Orchestras; Declaration Day


MUSIC; READ AT ANNUAL DINNER OF HARVARD MUSICAL ASSN., 1874, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: When 'music, heavenly maid' was very young
Last Line: We feel that life is immortality.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUSIC; TO ETHEL BARTLETT AND RAE ROBERTSON (AFTER THEIR CONCERT), by JOHN FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This was not music. Music is but notes
Last Line: And fears of mortal ill.
Subject(s): Barlett, Ethel (1896-1978); Duopianists; Music & Musicians; Robertson, Rae (1893-1956); Symphonies; Concerts


MUSICIAN, by CLIFFORD BAX    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Many know you now by virtue of that music
Last Line: All the rest of life is lovelier for those years.
Subject(s): Memory; Music & Musicians


MUSICIANS WRESTLE EVERYWHERE, by EMILY DICKINSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: Please god – shall ascertain!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MUZIO, by ALICE PHELPS RIDER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Rainbow colors flame and glow
Last Line: When I list to muzio!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


MY LOVE: MUSIC DOES, by ELENI SIKELIANOS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Music is a dog
Last Line: On a catalpa flower.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


MY MADELINE; SERENADE IN M FLAT, by WALTER PARKE    Poem Text                    
First Line: My madeline! My madeline!
Last Line: Madonna mia! My madeline!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


MYSTERY, by MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Mine ears have caught some melody of winds
Last Line: And sense a hidden music in the world.
Alternate Author Name(s): Burt, Struthers
Subject(s): Dawn; Music & Musicians; Nature; Wind; Sunrise


NEAR MISS HAIKU, by ANSELM HOLLO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Order out of chaos equals frogs
Last Line: Opens the book
Subject(s): Books; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Poetry & Poets; Violins; Reading


NEBULA, by PETRONELLA HELEN URASKY-CHAPP    Poem Text                    
First Line: Just beyond the words / floats an elusive
Last Line: Of an unfinished chord.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Violins


NEW WAVE, by ARTHUR SZE    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: He listens to a punk rock group
Last Line: Due to the effects of listening to agent orange.
Subject(s): Adolescence; Music & Musicians; Parents; Teen Agers; Parenthood


NEWARK, by ROBERT KELLY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: John coltrane died this morning
Last Line: Say itself inside our heads.
Subject(s): Coltrane, John (1926-1967); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Newark International Airport


NIGHT ABOVE THE TOWN, by THOMAS LUX    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In the glassed-in jazz club acres above
Last Line: On the tables . . . Grandmother. Grandfather
Subject(s): Grandparents; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers


NIGHT-MUSIC, by MURIEL RUKEYSER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When those who can never again forgive themselves
Subject(s): Night; Music & Musicians; Human Behavior; Bedtime; Conduct Of Life; Human Nature


NIL ADMIRARI, by MARY TUCKER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Lute, that too quick replies
Last Line: Heart, take root nevermore.
Subject(s): Lutes; Music & Musicians


NO FRIEND LIKE MUSIC, by DANIEL WHITEHEAD HICKY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is no whispering of any friend
Last Line: To let the soul march with the quiet stars!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


NORTHAMPTON STYLE, by MARIE PONSOT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Subject(s): Desire; Love; Nature; Music & Musicians


NOT GUILTY, by DAVID RIVARD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The days are dog-eared, the edges torn,
Subject(s): Johnson, Robert (1913-1938); Music & Musicians; Vallejo, Cesar (1892-1917); Poetry & Poets


NOTES ON THE ART OF MEMORY, by DIANE DI PRIMA    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The stars are a memory system
Last Line: Makes us think so
Subject(s): Jazz; Memory; Monk, Thelonious (1917-1982); Music & Musicians


NUIT BLANCHE, by AMY LOWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I want no horns to rouse me up to-night
Subject(s): Night; Music & Musicians; Ghosts; White (color); Bedtime


O.D., by TOM SLEIGH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I was surprised to find them
Subject(s): Drugs & Drug Abuse; Music & Musicians; Narcotics; Opium; Cocaine; Crack; Heroin


OCTAVES IN A GARDEN: 32, by ARTHUR W. UPSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He is no lover of the sea who loses
Last Line: Where the hills tire and the rough pathway bruises.
Subject(s): Melodies; Music & Musicians; Voices


OCTAVES IN AN OXFORD GARDEN: 31. SEPARATION, by ARTHUR W. UPSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Early at eve on onchan head, because
Last Line: Had I but heard your low, sweet laugh's applause!
Subject(s): Happiness; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Joy; Delight


ODE FOR DONNY HATHAWAY, by WANDA COLEMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: And then there are the one-hit zombies
Alternate Author Name(s): Coleman-straus, Wanda
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ODE FOR MUSIC, by THOMAS GRAY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Hence, avaunt! ('tis holy ground)
Last Line: "and gilds the horrors of the deep"
Subject(s): Fitzroy, Augustus. 3d Duke Of Grafton; Music & Musicians


ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE, by THOMAS HOOD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: O come, dear barney isaacs, come
Last Line: The other scar'd away the devil!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ODE [FOR MUSIC] ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY, by ALEXANDER POPE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Descend ye nine! Descend and sing
Last Line: Hers lift the soul to heav'n.
Subject(s): Cecilia, Saint (3d Century); Music & Musicians; Saints


OF MUSIC, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The miner delves in caverns of the earth
Last Line: Life thrills, grows luminous-large, smells sweet with balm and myrrh.
Subject(s): Caves; Earth; Life; Mines & Miners; Music & Musicians; Sailing & Sailors; Sleep; Caverns; World; Seamen; Sails


OF MY LADY ISABELLA PLAYING ON THE LUTE, by EDMUND WALLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Such moving sounds from such a careless touch
Last Line: His flaming rome, and as it burn'd, he play'd.
Subject(s): Lutes; Music & Musicians


OKRA TO GREENS: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF SOUND, DOWNTOWN, by NTOZAKE SHANGE    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I thought I might be in slug's
Last Line: It's ten years later/ & the changes are transcribed
Alternate Author Name(s): Williams, Paulette
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


OL' BUNK'S BAND, by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS            Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: These are men! The gaunt, unforesold, the vocal
Last Line: These are men, men, men
Subject(s): Bands; Jazz; Johnson, Bunk (1889-1949); Music & Musicians; Orchestras


OLD RECORDS, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Les shows me his new braun
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON 52ND STREET, by PHILIP LEVINE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Down sat bud, raised his hands
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Night Clubs; Jazz; New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple


ON A DEAD POET, by FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The hand that swept the sounding lyre
Last Line: Forevermore!
Alternate Author Name(s): Vane, Violet
Subject(s): Hearts; Love; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


ON AN OATEN STRAW, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My harp is out of tune, and so I take
Last Line: Seated with pan upon the mossy weir.
Subject(s): Harps; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology); Singing & Singers; Lyres; Songs


ON CYNTHIA, SINGING A RECITATIVE PIECE OF MUSIC, by PHILIP AYRES    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O thou angelic spirit, face and voice
Last Line: Has power to give us either life, or death.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON HEARING A LITTLE MUSIC-BOX, by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Hallo! - what? - where, what can it be
Last Line: Music for the flowers to blow to.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hunt, Leigh
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Music Box


ON HEARING HELEN HAGAN PLAY, by JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER JR.    Poem Text                    
First Line: It seemed to me a little rivulet
Last Line: Its benediction sweet.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON HEARING MADAME OLGA SAMAROFF PLAY, by WILLIAM WATSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: What hopes and fears, what tragical delight
Last Line: Have poured out to the world his heart's red wine.
Alternate Author Name(s): Watson, John William
Subject(s): Hands; Music & Musicians; Soul


ON HEARING MRS. WOODHOUSE PLAY THE HARPSICHORD, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: We poets pride ourselves on what
Last Line: "has made this poet my dumb slave."
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON MUSIC, by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I cannot tell how high my soul takes wing
Last Line: Unto the zephyr's piping, in dizzy, dizzy ring!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON MUSIC, by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Many love music but for music's sake
Last Line: A spark of life hath glisten'd and hath gone.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON MUSIC, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When through life unblest we rove
Last Line: Can sweetly soothe, and not betray!
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ON REREADING CATULLUS, by HARRY HIBBARD KEMP    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The flutes, the silver flutes began with dawn
Last Line: Or birds that brought awakening to the flutes?
Subject(s): Birds; Flutes; Music & Musicians


ON SEEING A PICTURE OF BEETHOVEN, by RALPH W. WESTCOTT    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sounds the deep boom of ocean and the roar
Last Line: And marks the meter of the storm king's tale.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians; Yale University


ON THE CORNER, by PHILIP LEVINE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Standing on the corner
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Tatum, Art (1910-1956)


ON THE DEATH OF JAZZ, by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They tell me jazz is dead
Last Line: And like some politicians dead, has not been buried yet.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hotair, Dopeton
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


ON THE DEATH OF MR. PELHAM HUMFRIES; PASTORAL SONG, by THOMAS FLATMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Did you not hear the hideous groan
Last Line: Though more forgotten in the grave than he.
Subject(s): Humfries, Pelham (d. 1674); Music & Musicians


ON THE DEATH OF MR. PURCELL, by JOHN DRYDEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Mark how the lark and linnet sing
Last Line: Nor know to mend their choice.
Variant Title(s): An Ode On The Death Of Mr Henry Purcell;an Ode, On The Death Of Mr. Henry Purcell, Late Servant To His Majesty
Subject(s): Death; Music & Musicians; Purcell, Henry (1659-1695); Teaching & Teachers; Dead, The; Educators; Professors


ON THE STATUE OF A PIPING FAUN, by HORACE SMITH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hark! Hearest thou not the pipe of faunus, sweeping
Last Line: By music and enchantment all surrounded.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): Greece; Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology); Statues; Greeks


ORDER FOR A SONG, by MIRIAM DEL BANCO    Poem Text                    
First Line: Out of the fullness of your warm heart
Last Line: And softly melt into heaven's hymn.
Subject(s): Hope; Hymns (as Literary Form); Melodies; Music & Musicians; Optimism


ORNITHOLOGY, by LYNDA HULL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty
Alternate Author Name(s): Wojahn, David, Mrs.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


ORPHEUS, by LINDA PASTAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When orpheus turned
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Orpheus


ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE: THE POWER OF MUSIC, by SAMUEL LISLE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When orpheus went down to the regions below
Last Line: Such power has music in hell.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


OUR LADY OF MUSIC, by MARTIN LUTHER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Of all the joys that are on earth
Last Line: Whose praise shall last eternally.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


OUT OF BABYLON, by CLINTON SCOLLARD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As I stole out of babylon beyond the stolid warders
Last Line: Dreaming of earth's loveliness, happy to be free!
Subject(s): Babylon; Escapes; Faith; Freedom; Morality; Music & Musicians; Fugitives; Belief; Creed; Liberty; Ethics


OVERTONE, by WILLIAM STANLEY MERWIN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Some listening were certain they could hear
Alternate Author Name(s): Merwin, W. S.
Subject(s): Mourning; Music & Musicians; Bereavement


OVERTURE, by LINDA PASTAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: This is the way
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


PADEREWSKI, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If songs were perfume, color, wild desire
Last Line: Turn at the last to beauty and to song!
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians; Paderewski, Ignacy Jan (1860-1941)


PALE SONG, by ANDRE GERMAIN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What music make with bells gulfed by the hours?
Last Line: What poems draw from a heart drowned in despair?
Alternate Author Name(s): Cendre, Lois
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Singing & Singers; Songs


PAN AND THALASSIUS: A LYRICAL IDYL, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Pan!
Last Line: Mine.
Subject(s): Fantasy; Forests; Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology); Woods


PAN IN WALL STREET, by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Just where the treasury's marble front
Last Line: The quarter sounded from the steeple.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Stock Exchange; Wall Street, New York City


PAN LEARNS MUSIC; FOR A SCULPTURE BY SARA GREENE, by HENRY VAN DYKE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Limber-limbed, lazy god, stretched on the rock
Last Line: "out of a river-reed music for man!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Civis Americanus
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology); Sculpture & Sculptors


PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE: CHARLES AVISON, by ROBERT BROWNING    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: How strange! But, first of all, the little fact
Last Line: "westminster's pym!"
Subject(s): Avison, Charles (1709-1770); Composers; Music & Musicians


PATE M'QUATTY ON HIS FIDDLE, by JAMES SHAW    Poem Text                    
First Line: O, I wouldna swap my auld fiddle
Last Line: I've daylight wherever I go.
Subject(s): Fiddles; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


PEACE ON EARTH, by MICHAEL S. HARPER    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Tunes come to me at morning
Last Line: A love supreme:
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


PERSISTENT MUSIC, by MARTIN LUTHER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lo! What am I, my heart, that I should dare
Last Line: May know its silence sadder than its song.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER, by WALLACE STEVENS    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Just as my fingers on these keys
Last Line: And makes a constant sacrament of praise.
Subject(s): Beauty; Lust; Music & Musicians; Susanna (bible); Women In The Bible


PIANO, by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me
Last Line: Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Alternate Author Name(s): Lawrence, D. H.
Subject(s): Children; Memory; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Nostalgia; Pianos; Singing & Singers; Time; Childhood; Songs


PIANO LESSONS, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sometimes the music is locked
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Pianos; Music Teachers


PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION; FOR PAMELA STEWART, by NORMAN DUBIE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It's best, when watching the surprising levitations
Last Line: Set aside like land, will be blessed by rain.
Subject(s): Children; Dwarfs; Music & Musicians; Relationships; Childhood


PLAYING THE INVISIBLE SAXOPHONE EN EL COMBO DE LA ESTRELLAS, by HARRYETTE MULLEN            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One of these days I'm gonna write a real performance poem
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


POETIC MUSE, by OLIVER MURRAY EDWARDS    Poem Text                    
First Line: With rhythm true the heart doth beat
Last Line: And words, like music, then escape.
Subject(s): Language; Muses; Music & Musicians; Words; Vocabulary


POETRY AND MUSIC, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Last Line: Fills the dim pause!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


POETRY MAKES RHYTHM IN PHILOSOPHY, by ISHMAEL REED    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Maybe it was the bichot
Last Line: Entered the room
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


PORTRAIT OF A LADY, by THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Among the smoke and fog of a december afternoon
Alternate Author Name(s): Eliot, T. S.
Subject(s): Friendship; Music & Musicians; Women


PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG CLARINETTIST, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I was a dull musician as a boy
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Clarinets


POSTPARTUM BLUES, by ELTON GLASER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Soon the glass angel must be
Subject(s): Blues (mood); Music & Musicians


PRAIRIE MUSIC, by NELLIE COOLEY ALDER    Poem Text                    
First Line: The music of the prairie is a tantalizing thing
Last Line: Over-ridden by the high cry of the night birds' wanderings.
Subject(s): Melodies; Music & Musicians


PRAISE OF MUSIC, by WILLIAM STRODE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When whispering strains with creeping wind
Last Line: And change his soul for harmony.
Variant Title(s): Music;song In Commemoration Of Music
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


PRELUDE TO A BOOK OF MUSIC, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Without intent, I find a book I've writ
Last Line: Hoping these echoed tones some wounded heart may bless.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


PRIMA DONNA OF THE NEGRO JAZZ ORCHESTRA, by ELLEN COIT ELLIOTT    Poem Text                    
First Line: I am the lemon-lily queen
Last Line: And my earrings tremble and shine.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


PROJECTION, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: On the day when the savoy
Last Line: Wonderful!
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Divine, Father (george Baker, 1877-1965); Harlem (new York City); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


PROPRIETY, by MARIANNE MOORE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Is some such word
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


PROTHALAMION [II], by TIMOTHY LIU    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Overlapping accelerandos set against
Last Line: Sounding a cappella in a choral round
Subject(s): Marriage; Music & Musicians


PROUD MUSIC OF THE STORM, by WALT WHITMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: Which let us go forth in the bold day and write
Subject(s): Storms; Music & Musicians


PYTHIAN ODES: 1. THE POWER OF MUSIC, by PINDAR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O lyre of gold, apollo's
Last Line: Goads him.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


QUARTET IN F MAJOR, by WILLIAM MEREDITH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Great beethoven, you trouble me this watchful night
Alternate Author Name(s): Meredith, Morris
Subject(s): War; Music & Musicians; Freedom; Liberty


QUATRAIN: MUSIC, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: God-born before the sons of god, she hurled
Last Line: Flamed as the universe rolled from her lyre.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


QUEEN OF THE BLUES, by GWENDOLYN BROOKS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Mame was singing
Last Line: Their hats to a queen?
Subject(s): Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


RAGTIME!, by ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ragtime! Ragtime! Keep it going still!
Last Line: Gently the music fades away—and so, god rest us all!
Subject(s): Death; Disasters; Music & Musicians; Ships & Shipping; Shipwrecks; Titanic (ship); Dead, The


RECIPROCITY, by D. H. INGHAM    Poem Text                    
First Line: With the may blossoms, cheery and bold
Last Line: "nothing sweeter than silence,"" sang he."
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


RECITAL; ROGER BOBO GIVES RECITAL ON TUBA, by JOHN UPDIKE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Eskimos in manitoba
Last Line: Solo, quite like roger bubo!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


REFERENCE BACK, by PHILIP LARKIN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: That was a pretty one, I heard you call
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Time


REMEMBERED MUSIC, by JOSEPH FREEMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lying under a weird blue sky
Last Line: In dull trafalgar square.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Ukraine; Songs


REMEMBERED MUSIC; A FRAGMENT, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast
Last Line: To listen when the next would be.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


RESPONSE, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a music of immaculate love
Last Line: Emotions -- that are flowers -- born of such.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


REVELATION AT CAP FERRAT, by CLARENCE MAJOR    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It's not solely the dance
Subject(s): Relationships; Music & Musicians


RHYTHM AND BLUES, by SUSAN WOOD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Those days our bodies dove us, churning
Last Line: Every part of them on fire
Subject(s): Youth; Music & Musicians


ROMANCERO: BOOK 1. HISTORIES: THE GOLDEN CALF, by HEINRICH HEINE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fiddle, flute, and horn uniting
Last Line: Kettle drums and ringing laughter!
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Idols; Laughter; Music & Musicians


ROMANCIN', by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I'b'en a-kindo' musin', as the feller says
Last Line: "I kin wake and say ""dog-gone-it!"" jest as soft as any prayer!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Birds; Music & Musicians; Nature; Time


ROMANIA, ROMANIA, by GERALD STERN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I stand like some country crow across the street
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


ROSE SOLITUDE; FOR DUKE ELLINGTON, by JAYNE CORTEZ    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I am essence of rose solitude
Last Line: Never dies
Subject(s): Ellington, Edward Kennedy ('duke'); Jazz; Music & Musicians


ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT, by BOB KAUFMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Jazz radio on a midnight kick
Last Line: Round about midnight
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Night; Bedtime


SAVED BY MUSIC, by WILLIAM MCGONAGALL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At one time, in america, many years ago
Last Line: And they released him from his dangerous position without delay.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Play; Sound


SCARLATTI, by JAMES SCHUYLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Last night / locked in
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Scarlatti, Domenico (1685-1757)


SCHUBERT IN FLORIDA, by CHARLIE SMITH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When you slunk across my dream
Subject(s): Divorce; Grief; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


SCRAMBLED EGGS AND WHISKEY, by HAYDEN CARRUTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
Last Line: In that old club tonight
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


SECOND FIDDLE, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Just behind the first fiddle he bends
Last Line: And the fiddle called second, be first.
Subject(s): Fiddles; Happiness; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Soul; Joy; Delight


SECRET MUSIC, by SIEGFRIED SASSOON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I keep such music in my brain
Last Line: And music dawned above despair.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Soldiers' Writings; World War I; First World War


SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 3, by CONRAD AIKEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When the tree bares, the music of it changes
Last Line: "your lights and music. It will be good to talk."
Variant Title(s): The House
Subject(s): Houses; Music & Musicians; Old Age


SHE HEARD MUSIC, by MAUDE SCRUGGS    Poem Text                    
First Line: She heard music. Her soul received
Last Line: She heard music.
Subject(s): Faith; Jesus Christ; Music & Musicians; Soul; Belief; Creed


SILENCE, by JOHN COWPER POWYS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My dear, that crying in the heart
Last Line: They call the music of the spheres!
Subject(s): Hearts; Music & Musicians; Silence; Summer; Tears; Wind


SINGING BACK THE WORLD, by DORIANNE LAUX    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I don't remember how it began
Last Line: The trouble I've seen.
Subject(s): Driving & Drivers; Forgetfulness; Music & Musicians


SLEEP, AFTER RAY CHARLES SHOW AND HURRICANE REPORT, by HEATHER MCHUGH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A storm named for a woman
Subject(s): Charles, Ray (b. 1930); Jazz; Music & Musicians


SLIPPER TIME, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tis a homely time of ease and rest
Last Line: This homely, human slipper time.
Subject(s): Children; Life; Memory; Music & Musicians; Peace; Sleep; Soul; Childhood


SNAKECHARMER, by SYLVIA PLATH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: As the gods began one world, and man another,
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Ted, Mrs.
Subject(s): Eden; Snakes; Music & Musicians; Serpents; Vipers


SOEUR MONIQUE'; A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN, by ALICE MEYNELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Quiet form of silent nun
Last Line: In the fields of heaven
Alternate Author Name(s): Meynell, Wilfrid, Mrs.; Thompson, Alice Christina
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Prostitution


SOFT MUSIC, by ROBERT HERRICK    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The mellow touch of musick most doth wound
Last Line: The soule, when it doth rather sigh, then sound.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


SOLEA, by JESSICA TARAHATA HAGEDORN    Poem Source                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There are rapists / out there
Last Line: Anymore
Alternate Author Name(s): Hagedorn, Jessica
Subject(s): Cities; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Rape; Urban Life


SOLEDAD, by ROBERT EARL HAYDEN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Naked, he lies in the blinded room
Last Line: Oh swings: beyond complete immortal now.
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Davis, Miles (1926-1991); Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


SONATA AT PAYNE HOLLOW, by WENDELL BERRY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: We never stopped here before
Last Line: Out of all the time we were apart
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Play


SONG, by WILLIAM ROSE BENET    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Had I a claim to fame?
Last Line: "he was her lover!"
Subject(s): Hope; Love Affairs; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Optimism; Songs


SONG AND MUSIC, by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: O leave your hand where it lies cool
Last Line: Now while the song withdraws.
Alternate Author Name(s): Rossetti, Gabriel Charles Dante
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


SONG FOR BILLIE HOLIDAY, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: What can purge my heart
Last Line: Where?
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


SONG FOR IDLERS, by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910)    Poem Text                    
First Line: A nap in the woods on a soft june day
Last Line: Of a nap in a green june wood!
Subject(s): Idleness; Music & Musicians; Peace; Singing & Singers; Laziness; Sloth; Indolence


SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, by WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In a garden shady this holy lady
Alternate Author Name(s): Auden, W. H.
Variant Title(s): Anthem For St. Cecelia's Day
Subject(s): Cecilia, Saint (3d Century); Music & Musicians; Saints


SONGS OF INNOCENCE: INTRODUCTION, by WILLIAM BLAKE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Piping down the valleys wild
Last Line: Every child may joy to hear.
Variant Title(s): Child And The Piper;the Happy Piper;pipe A Song;reeds Of Innocence;a Song Of Singing;the Piper
Subject(s): Bible; Imagination; Innocence; Music & Musicians; Mythology; Pipers; Vision; Fancy


SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING: 1. AT THE THEATRE, by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913)    Poem Text                    
First Line: Thine eyes are set upon the dancing-girls before thee
Last Line: Thou dost intoxicate both head and heart.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Love; Music & Musicians; Theater & Theaters; Stage Life


SONNET (ON HEARING SERGI RACHMANINOFF), by MARTHA SPARROW METTENET    Poem Text                    
First Line: O, magic moments when I hear you play
Last Line: This hour of music is a gracious treat.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Rachmaninoff, Sergey (1873-1943)


SONNET FOR IDA, by RUTH DE MENEZES    Poem Text                    
First Line: So the pale hands are quiet - they that knew
Last Line: Somewhere she's playing grieg -- for grieg -- tonight.
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians


SONNET TO HIS FRIEND R.L. IN PRAISE OF MUSIQUE AND POETRIE, by RICHARD BARNFIELD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If musique and sweet poetrie agree
Last Line: One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.
Alternate Author Name(s): Barnefield, Richard
Variant Title(s): In Praise Of Music And Poetry;song, Fr. The Passionate Pilgrim
Subject(s): Dowland, John (1563-1626); Love; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


SONNET: 128, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: How oft when thou art my music, music play'st
Last Line: Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Variant Title(s): "my Music;""how Oft, When Thou, My Music, Music Play'st"";
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


SONNET: 13. TO MR. H. LAWES, ON HIS AIRS, by JOHN MILTON    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Harry whose tuneful and well-measured song
Last Line: Met in the milder shades of purgatory.
Variant Title(s): Sonnet: 13;to Mr. H. Lawes, On His Airs
Subject(s): Composers; Lawes, Henry (1596-1662); Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


SONNET: 3, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Ah, happy time! When music bound in one
Last Line: Art's standard high as dome or minaret.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Soul


SONNET: 69. ON HEARING A SYMPHONY OF BEETHOVEN, by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Alternate Author Name(s): Boyd, Nancy; Boissevain, Eugen, Mrs.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


SONNET: 8, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Last Line: Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'
Subject(s): Love - Marital; Marriage; Music & Musicians; Wedded Love; Marriage - Love; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


SONNET: THE PAINTER TO THE MAGICIAN, by CONSTANCE CAROLINE WOODHILL NADEN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, sing once more, nor think your subtle spells
Last Line: Our noblest work, our deepest thoughts, belong.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Paintings And Painters


SOUND IN SILENCE, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Walking when all the ways seemed wondrous still
Last Line: With many musics, for my solacement.
Subject(s): Animals; Faces; Music & Musicians; Silence; Sound


SOUSA, by JAMES HOWARD FLOWER    Poem Text                    
First Line: John philip sousa! Proud the name
Last Line: With wagner and gounod.
Subject(s): Marching & Marches; Music & Musicians


SPINNING SONG, by SAROJINI NAIDU    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My sisters plucked green leaves at morn
Last Line: For the beauty of your eyes.
Subject(s): Beauty; Festivals; Flowers; Folk Songs - Indian; Music & Musicians; Spring; Fairs; Pageants


SPLIT THE LARK AND YOU'LL FIND THE MUSIC, by EMILY DICKINSON    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: FIDDLER JONES, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The earth keeps some vibration going
Last Line: And not a single regret.
Variant Title(s): Fiddler Jones
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Old Age


ST. LOUIS BLUES, by WILLIAM CHRISTOPHER HANDY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I hate to see de ev'nin' sun go down
Last Line: If my blues don't get you my jazzing must.
Alternate Author Name(s): Handy, W. C.
Subject(s): Blues (mood); Music & Musicians


STANZAS FOR MUSIC, by ELIZA COOK    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There's a love that only lives
Last Line: And that one's far away.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


STANZAS FOR MUSIC, by FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Believe me, 'tis no pang of jealous pride
Last Line: For what I am -- but what I wish to be!
Alternate Author Name(s): Vane, Violet
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


STANZAS WRITTEN UNDER AEOLUS'S HARP, by AMELIA OPIE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Come, ye whose hearts the tyrant sorrows wound
Last Line: And make my plaintive lays enchant like thine.
Alternate Author Name(s): Alderson, Amelia
Subject(s): Harps; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Lyres


STORM-MUSIC, by HENRY VAN DYKE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O music has thou only heard
Last Line: And harmony the rose.
Alternate Author Name(s): Civis Americanus
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Storms


STRANGE FRUIT, by JOY HARJO    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I was out in the early evening, taking a walk in the fields to think about this
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Lynching; Music & Musicians; Racism; Negroes; American Blacks; Racial Prejudice; Bigotry


STREET CRIERS, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: When poll stays here, her jack goes there
Last Line: Who'll buy young watercress?'
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


STREET MUSIC, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O how the dance-tune trips it through the street
Last Line: From a bleared woman, sick and old and sad!
Subject(s): Life; Music & Musicians; Spring; Streets; Avenues


STREET MUSICIANS, by JOHN ASHBERY    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One died, and the soul was wrenched out
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Homeless


STREET MUSICIANS, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As once a noisy car bore me along
Last Line: O give me peace that I the whole may hear!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


STREET SONG, by SYLVIA PLATH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: By a mad miracle I go intact
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Ted, Mrs.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


STRENGTH OF THE ORCHESTRA, by HORTENSE KING FLEXNER    Poem Text                    
First Line: Two hands are manipulating
Last Line: Of monstrous oaks.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


STRING QUARTET, by WILLIAM MEREDITH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: How learn our way through these mazy strings
Alternate Author Name(s): Meredith, Morris
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


SUMMER'S PASSING, by ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A single branch of flaming red
Last Line: The singing and the sighing!
Subject(s): Happiness; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Summer; Joy; Delight


SUNDAY MORNING, by FREDERICK LOUIS MACNEICE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Down the road someone is practising scales
Alternate Author Name(s): Macneice, Louis
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Sabbath; Sunday


SUNDAY UP THE RIVER: 18, by JAMES THOMSON (1834-1882)    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The wine of love is music
Last Line: That great, rich vine.
Alternate Author Name(s): B. V.; Bysshe Vanolis
Variant Title(s): The Vine
Subject(s): Alcoholism & Alcoholics; Music & Musicians


SURFACES AND MASKS; 3, by CLARENCE MAJOR    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: She takes him into “the rape of europa”
Last Line: The only play picasso ever wrote
Subject(s): Venice, Italy; Music & Musicians; Writing & Writers; Togetherness; Italians


SWAY, by LOUIS SIMPSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Everyone at lake kearney had a nickname:
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Women


SYMPHONY, by NELL FARRINGTON MYERS    Poem Text                    
First Line: I have knelt in great cathedrals
Last Line: As the symphony ... On the farm.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Symphonies; Concerts


SYMPHONY MUSIC, by GEORGE GLAYNE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Symphony music
Last Line: Like lovers in an ecstatic mood.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Sound; Symphonies; Concerts


SYMPHONY OF WINTER, by ANNE MABRY MCFARLAND    Poem Text                    
First Line: The world is a stage for nature's own ...
Last Line: And flowers spring up from their hearts.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN: THE FIRST DAY: PRELUDE. THE WAYSIDE INN, by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One autumn night, in sudbury town
Last Line: Yielded; and thus the story ran.
Subject(s): Books; Music & Musicians; Stradivari, Antonio (1644-1737); Sudbury, Massachusetts; Reading


TAMPA, by FRANKLIN N. WOOD    Poem Text                    
First Line: Low, rambling docks along tidewater ways
Last Line: The tinkling of a troubadour's guitar.
Subject(s): Florida; Guitars; Music & Musicians; Tampa Bay


TANGLEWOOD, by MICHAEL RYAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: We were trying to talk about love
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Man-woman Relationships; Male-female Relations


TAPPING; FOR BABY LAURENCE AND OTHER TAP DANCERS, by JAYNE CORTEZ    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When I pat this floor
Last Line: Go hmmmp hmmmmp hmmmmmp
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Jazz; Music & Musicians


TAZA BA TAZA, by EDWIN ARNOLD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Akbar sate high in the ivory wall
Last Line: Taza ba taza, now ba now.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TESTAMENT OF SEX, by DENISE DUHAMEL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Every saturday the saxophone sage
Last Line: The sound before a great war
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THALASSIUS, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Upon the flowery forefront of the year
Last Line: And in thy soul the sense of all the sea.
Subject(s): Life; Music & Musicians; Sea; Singing & Singers; Wandering & Wanderers; Wind; Ocean


THAT GENERAL UTILITY RAG, BY OUR OWN IRVING BERLIN, by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I like to hear-yes, yes!-I like to hear
Last Line: Ra-a-a-g!
Alternate Author Name(s): F. P. A.
Subject(s): Bands; Berlin, Irving (1888-1989); Music & Musicians; Symphonies; Orchestras; Concerts


THE ACCOMPANIST, by DICK ALLEN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE ACCOMPANIST, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Don't play too much, don't play
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE ACCOMPANIST, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: Perhaps it is a humble thing to weave
Last Line: To make a perfect background for the rest.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE AIM WAS SONG, by ROBERT FROST    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Before man came to blow it right
Last Line: The aim was song -- the wind could see.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE ANGEL OF GOD IN THE GARDEN OF DAME PHANTASY, by THEOPHILE JULIUS HENRY MARZIALS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Dame fancy's garden hath a deep bocage
Last Line: The simples of her art will make them live alway
Alternate Author Name(s): Marzials, Theo; Marzials, Theophile Jules Henri
Subject(s): Angels; Gardens & Gardening; Heaven; Love; Music & Musicians; Paradise


THE ANGER OF BEETHOVEN, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This night the enchanting musicians rendered a trio of beethoven
Last Line: And in art supreme, immortal, the infamous arrows of fortune.
Subject(s): Anger; Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


THE AUDIENCE, by GLADYS CROMWELL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Intently leans the avid sage
Last Line: Progressive theme perpetually.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Music Criticism & Critics


THE BALLAD OF IMITATION, by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: If they hint, o musician, the piece that you played
Last Line: And the man who plants cabbages imitates, too!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dobson, Austin
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Imitation; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


THE BATTLE MUSIC, by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Around the earth, like tides of ocean
Last Line: Who wage the battle of the soul.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE BEAT, by HAYDEN CARRUTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Well, I'm too much of a musician
Last Line: Of lilacs in the springtime.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE BELLS, by EDGAR ALLAN POE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hear the sledges with the bells
Last Line: To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Subject(s): Bells; Music & Musicians


THE BELLS OF SHANDON, by FRANCIS SYLVESTER MAHONY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: With deep affection and recollection
Last Line: Of the river lee.
Alternate Author Name(s): Prout, Father
Variant Title(s): Shandon Bells
Subject(s): Bells; Lee (river), Ireland; Music & Musicians; Patriotism


THE BIRD, THE BIRD, THE BIRD, by ROBERT CREELEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: With the spring flowers I likewise am
Last Line: Implacable, but content
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955)


THE BLACK BACK-UPS, by KATE RUSHIN    Poem Text                 Recitation by Author    
First Line: This is dedicated to merry clayton, fontella bass, vonetta
Alternate Author Name(s): Rushin, Donna Kate
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; African Americans - Women; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Popular Culture - United States; Singing & Singers; Women's Rights; Songs; Feminism


THE BUDDY BOLDEN CYLINDER, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It doesn't exist, I know, but I love
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Bolden, Buddy (1877-1931); Jazz; Music & Musicians


THE BUGLER; A CASE STUDY IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR, by LIN DAVIES    Poem Text                    
First Line: I can't blow taps no more
Last Line: "and that squares me!"
Subject(s): Bugles; Death; Music & Musicians; Psychology; Soldiers; War; Dead, The; Psychologists


THE CALL OF LIFE, by CHARLES V. H. ROBERTS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Only one life to live! To do the best
Last Line: Thou art a ruby in god's paradise.
Subject(s): Life; Music & Musicians; Symphonies; Concerts


THE CELLO, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When late I heard the trembling cello play
Last Line: No face of all can ever seem the same.
Subject(s): Cellos; Music & Musicians


THE CHAPEL-ORGANIST, by THOMAS HARDY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I've been thinking it through, as I play here tonight, to play never again
Last Line: Not a soul from the seaport my birthplace -- will come, or bestow me. . . A tear.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE CHILDREN'S MUSIC, by FRANCES MARY OWEN    Poem Text                    
First Line: We asked where the magic came from
Last Line: "which the little children hear."
Alternate Author Name(s): Owen, F. M.
Subject(s): Children; Music & Musicians; Childhood


THE CHOIR INVISIBLE, by MARY ANN EVANS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Last Line: Whose music is the gladness of the world.
Alternate Author Name(s): Eliot, George; Cross, Marian Lewes; Evans, Marian; Ann, Mary
Subject(s): Ambition; Creative Ability; Life Change Events; Music & Musicians; Religion; Worship; Inspiration; Creativity; Theology


THE CHORISTER, by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910)    Poem Text                    
First Line: Twas easter morn. The sanctuary long
Last Line: His own arch foe no more, but his own friend.
Subject(s): Choirs; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


THE CITY, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, dear is the song of the pine
Last Line: For the ships of all the earth!
Subject(s): Broadway, New York City; Music & Musicians


THE COMBO, by JOAN LARKIN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In barlight alchemized: gold pate, the bellmouth
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE COMPOSER'S WINTER DREAM, by NORMAN DUBIE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Vivid and heavy, he strolls through dark brick kitchens
Last Line: In a struggle with the loud, combatant horns.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Cooking & Cooks; Deafness; Death; Music & Musicians; Winter; Cookery; Dead, The


THE CONCERT, by LISEL MUELLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The harpist believes there is music
Alternate Author Name(s): Muller, Lisel
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE CONFLICT: 6. THE REAL GERMANY, by PERCY MACKAYE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Bismarck - or rapt beethoven with his dreams
Last Line: Of buried guns gives birth to germany.
Alternate Author Name(s): Mackaye, Percy Wallace
Subject(s): Ambition; Art & Artists; Bismark, Otto Von (1815-1898); Music & Musicians; Philosophy & Philosophers; World War I; First World War


THE CURFEW CHIMES, by VARNUM LANSING COLLINS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Clanging, dinging / slowly swinging
Last Line: Float down from the frosted sky!
Subject(s): Bells; Music & Musicians


THE DANCE, by DAVID NASH    Poem Text                    
First Line: On with the dance!' and the orchestra played
Last Line: "on with the dance! May it ever be this!"
Subject(s): Bands; Dancing & Dancers; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE DANCE, by JOHN COWPER POWYS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dance on; we would not touch you
Last Line: Dance like a star on the sea!
Subject(s): Beauty; Dancing & Dancers; Life; Music & Musicians; Night; Sea; Bedtime; Ocean


THE DANCE OF LOVE (WRITTEN FOR MADAME LIZA LEHMANN), by SAROJINI NAIDU    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The music sighs and slumbers
Last Line: Love's ecstasy and pain.
Subject(s): Dancing & Dancers; Hearts; Love; Music & Musicians


THE DAWN-STAR MAIDEN AND THE HONEY BLOSSOM BLUES, by CHARLES R. MURPHY    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sing us a dance in jazz-land numbers
Last Line: Dance the honey-blossom blues!
Subject(s): Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians


THE DAY LADY DIED, by FRANK O'HARA (1926-1966)    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It is 12:20 in new york a friday
Last Line: Minneapolis, mn, www.Coffeehousepress.Com
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Men; Music & Musicians; Music, Rock; Singing & Singers; Rock & Roll; Songs


THE DREAM SONGS: 68, by JOHN BERRYMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I heard, could be, a hey there from the wing
Last Line: Black to the birds instead
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, John, Jr.
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Smith, Bessie (1894-1937); Songs


THE DRUM, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: O the drum!
Last Line: Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the ear!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Drums; Freedom; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; War; Liberty


THE DRUMMER, by EDMOND ROSTAND    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Early before the unseen cricket-choir
Last Line: That mocking pipe, my spirit, whistles still!
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


THE EAR IS AN ORGAN MADE FOR LOVE, by E. ETHELBERT MILLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It was the language that left us first
Subject(s): Language; Love; Music & Musicians; Words; Vocabulary


THE EVERYDAY ENCHANTMENT OF MUSIC, by MARK STRAND    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polishe
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE FANTASTIC NAMES OF JAZZ, by HAYDEN CARRUTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Zoot sims, joshua redman
Last Line: And of course jelly roll morton.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Names


THE FESTIVAL OF PEACE: THE ORCHESTRA, by NATHAN HASKELL DOLE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Now shall the organ be roused to its utmost passion of power
Last Line: Drums and cymbals and harps — all fill their eloquent parts.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE FIDDLING WOOD, by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron
Last Line: Black, dragon branches whipped below a moon!
Subject(s): Forests; Music & Musicians; Woods


THE FIFTIES, by MARVIN BELL            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Miles davis is on a night off
Subject(s): Davis, Miles (1926-1991); Jazz; Music & Musicians


THE FIREMEN'S BALL, by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Give the engines room
Last Line: Clang . . . Clang . . . Clang.
Alternate Author Name(s): Lindsay, Vachel
Subject(s): Bands; Dancing & Dancers; Fire; Firefighters; Life; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE FIRST VIOLINIST, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: We passed him
Last Line: And shut us in!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Violins


THE FLOWER OF THE RUINS, by GEORGE MEREDITH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Take thy lute and sing
Last Line: With the flood!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


THE FLUTE, by ANDRE MARIE CHENIER    Poem Text                    
First Line: When I remember I am nigh to weep
Last Line: To close the gaps upon the sounding reed.
Subject(s): Flutes; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


THE FLUTE, by PIERRE LOUIS    Poem Text                    
First Line: For the festival of the hyacinths, he gave me a syrinx
Last Line: The girdle I have lost.
Alternate Author Name(s): Louys, Pierre
Subject(s): Festivals; Flutes; Music & Musicians; Play; Singing & Singers; Fairs; Pageants; Songs


THE FLUTE-PLAYER OF BRINDABAN, by SAROJINI NAIDU    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why didst thou play thy matchless flute
Last Line: The nectar of thy flute!
Subject(s): Death; Melodies; Memory; Music & Musicians; Dead, The


THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST, by ROBERT BROWNING    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Enter my palace,' if a prince should say
Last Line: By halle, schumann, piatti, joachim.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE FUGUE (ANDANTE MAESTOSO), by NATHAN HASKELL DOLE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Hark! Like a golden thread of sound aerial
Last Line: With a whole world of beauty in its bounds.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE GAMESTERS, by WILLIAM WATSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Music and poesy, like gods at play
Last Line: And let her heavenly sister snatch control.
Alternate Author Name(s): Watson, John William
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


THE GERMAN BAND, by EARL DERR BIGGERS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Just a german band a-playing in a narrow alley-way
Last Line: Just a german band a-playing in a narrow alley-way.
Subject(s): Bands; Marching & Marches; Music & Musicians; Parades; Patriotism; Orchestras


THE GLORIOUS GAME, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I go about dumfoundedly, and show a dullard's glance
Last Line: Sky-larking down the days!
Subject(s): Faith; Music & Musicians; Truth; Belief; Creed


THE GLORY TRUMPETER, by DEREK WALCOTT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Old eddie's face, wrinkled with river lights
Subject(s): African Americans - Song And Music; Jazz; Music & Musicians


THE GRAMOPHONE AT FOND-DU-LAC, by ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Now eddie malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store
Last Line: Jack.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE GREAT MUSICIAN, by CHARLES LOUIS HENRY WAGNER    Poem Text                    
First Line: As the mottled shadows of the maple leaves
Last Line: But thine will ever be heard.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE GUITAR, by DAVID BOTTOMS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Alone on a hill above the festival, I listen past field noise
Last Line: Could suddenly go strange in my hand?
Subject(s): Festivals; Guitars; Music & Musicians; Fairs; Pageants


THE HARP NOTES, by MARY MORSELL    Poem Text                    
First Line: Slowly each viol and flute took up the
Last Line: I felt the harp notes falling, one by one.
Subject(s): Love; Melodies; Music & Musicians


THE HARPER, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Like a drift of faded blossoms
Last Line: And god's companionship!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Harps; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Rain; Lyres


THE HARPIST OF UR, by ELDOROUS DAYTON    Poem Text                    
First Line: Unravished by the centuries, he kneels
Last Line: A sweeter music tingling from his hand.
Subject(s): Harps; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Lyres


THE HAUNTED, by RHYS CARPENTER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Masters of music, ye of tuneful vein
Last Line: God's blessing is your bane.
Subject(s): Ghosts; Loss; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Supernatural; Songs


THE HISTORY OF JAZZ, by KENNETH KOCH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: The leaves of blue came drifting down
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


THE HORRORS OF MAJUBA, by WILLIAM MCGONAGALL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas after the great majuba fight
Last Line: That their fame will be handed down to posterity for many a day!
Subject(s): Bands; Courage; Fights; Heroism; Music & Musicians; Orchestras; Valor; Bravery; Heroes; Heroines


THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 79. THE MONOCHORD, by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Is it this sky's vast vault or ocean's sound
Last Line: Upon the devious coverts of dismay?
Alternate Author Name(s): Rossetti, Gabriel Charles Dante
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE IMPROVISATORE: THE INDUCTION TO THE FIRST FYTTE, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Dank is the air and dusk the sky
Last Line: Amid the mazy paths of song.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Minstrels; Music & Musicians; Rites & Ceremonies; Singing & Singers; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Songs


THE IMPROVISATORE: THE INDUCTION TO THE SECOND FYTTE, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The minstrel ceased; the music's wings
Last Line: Caught his wild story from the blast.
Subject(s): Advice; Minstrels; Music & Musicians; Rites & Ceremonies; Singing & Singers; Songs


THE IMPROVISATORE: THE INDUCTION TO THE THIRD FYTTE, by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The tale was said. Fair agnes rose
Last Line: Upon the marvels of his tongue.
Subject(s): Aging; Bribery; Minstrels; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Women; Songs


THE INDOORS IS ENDLESS, by TOMAS TRANSTROMER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It's spring in 1827, beethoven / hoists his death-mask and sails off
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Death; Music & Musicians; Soul; Dead, The


THE ITINERANT POET'S ROAD SONG, by KAREN SWENSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Comin' out of lolo pass
Last Line: All you got is the changes in time... The changes in time.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Travel; Journeys; Trips


THE JAZZ GIRL, by MYRTLE HICKEY MCCORMACK HOWARD    Poem Text                    
First Line: Like a butterfly that flits from flower to flower
Last Line: In her jazz -- she forgot all maidenly duty.
Subject(s): Aging; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Women


THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND, by DAVID WAGONER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: When our semi-conductor
Subject(s): High Schools; Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE KEYBOARD, by ANNE CAMPBELL    Poem Text                    
First Line: Life is a keyboard / on which we press
Last Line: Hold music too!
Alternate Author Name(s): Stark, George, Mrs.
Subject(s): Happiness; Music & Musicians; Joy; Delight


THE LAST MUSIC, by LIONEL PIGOT JOHNSON    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Calmly, breathe calmly all your music, maids!
Last Line: Rest! Worthy found, to die.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE LIFE TO COME, by EDWARD SHILLITO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a city where god's happy children
Last Line: Then I should ask of god no more.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Future Life; Music & Musicians; Retribution; Eternity; After Life


THE LOST CHORD, by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER    Poem Text     Poem Explanation                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Seated one day at the organ
Last Line: I shall hear that grand amen.
Alternate Author Name(s): Berwick, Mary
Subject(s): Heaven; Memory; Music & Musicians; Organs (musical Instruments); Paradise


THE LOVELY HUSBAND, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh a lovely husband he was known, he loved his wife and
Last Line: In this love-ly man!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Love; Marriage; Music & Musicians; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


THE LUTE AND THE LYRE, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root
Last Line: Deep desire.
Subject(s): Desire; Music & Musicians; Roundels


THE LUTE PLAYER (A WOMAN), by HAN YU    Poem Text                    
First Line: Tell-tale your song -- as tell-tale as your eyes
Last Line: Like water flooding from a broken vase.
Alternate Author Name(s): T'su-chih
Subject(s): Lutes; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Women


THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL, by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I sat on cushioned otter skin
Last Line: Old.
Alternate Author Name(s): Yeats, W. B.
Subject(s): Wandering & Wanderers; Courts & Couriers; Music & Musicians


THE MAN WITH THE BLUE GUITAR: 1-6, by WALLACE STEVENS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: The man bent over his guitar
Last Line: A composing of senses of the guitar
Subject(s): Human Rights; Music & Musicians


THE MAN WITH THE SAXOPHONE, by FLORENCE ANTHONY                        Poet's Biography
First Line: New york. 5 a.M.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ai
Subject(s): Cities; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Urban Life


THE MARKET-BELL, by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweet from his pipe the piper drew
Last Line: Earth's loud, imperious market bell.
Alternate Author Name(s): Van Deth, Gerrit, Mrs.
Subject(s): Bells; Music & Musicians; Sound


THE MASTER-CHORD, by WILLIAM CALDWELL ROSCOE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Like a musician that with flying finger
Last Line: And dare not stoop, fearing to tell -- I love her.
Variant Title(s): A Lover's Fear
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


THE MAY PARTY, by JAMES OPPENHEIM    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O million-singing comes the may
Last Line: Had given birth to man!
Subject(s): Central Park, New York City; Music & Musicians; Parks; Parties; Summer


THE MEETING, by HEINRICH HEINE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The music under the linden-tree sounds
Last Line: And shun now the sight of each other.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Nymphs; Youth


THE MERRY MUSIC, by JAMES STEPHENS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Letting the merry music stray
Last Line: Letting the merry music stray!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE MILITARY HARPIST, by RUTH PITTER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Strangely assorted, the shape of song and the bloody man
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Soldiers


THE MINSTREL, by CLINTON SCOLLARD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He played on the single string
Last Line: And the red damascus rose!
Subject(s): Middle East; Music & Musicians; Superstition; Near East; Levant


THE MOCKINGBIRD, by JOHN WARWICK DANIEL III    Poem Text                    
First Line: Like a herald rainbow springing from a cloud
Last Line: And I have learned the music of a passionate desire.
Subject(s): Memory; Mockingbirds; Music & Musicians


THE MOONLIGHT SONATA: ALICE'S STORY. PART II, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Long has the school been left behind
Last Line: The opening notes were heard.
Subject(s): Girls; Music & Musicians


THE MOONLIGHT SONATA: CONCLUSION, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ye read her story
Last Line: And service of high praise in the eternal land!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Praise


THE MOONLIGHT SONATA: THE SONATA: PART 1 (ADAGIO), by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Soft and slow / ever a gentle underflow
Last Line: With sudden sparkle of delight, a new and joyous strain.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


THE MOONLIGHT SONATA: THE SONATA: PART 2 (ALLEGRETTO), by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Awake! Awake / for life is sweet
Last Line: While deeper still the silence, deeper yet the shade.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE MOONLIGHT SONATA: THE SONATA: PART 3 (PRESTO AGITATO), by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Now in awful tempest swelling
Last Line: And to the master, -- praise!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


THE MUSIC, by GERALD STERN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: He is not the only one getting ready only
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE MUSIC O' THE DEAD, by WILLIAM BARNES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When music, in a heart that's true
Last Line: The music o' the dead, john.
Subject(s): Death; Memory; Mourning; Music & Musicians; Dead, The; Bereavement


THE MUSIC OF A FRIEND, by LOUIS V. LEDOUX    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I had a garden where for sunless days
Last Line: Full-throated, came the music of a friend.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Solitude; Loneliness


THE MUSIC OF THE PINES, by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Far away, like fairy bugles, when the shades
Last Line: Like the music that I ne'er shall hear again from out the pines.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Orchestras


THE MUSIC OF THE SEA, by QUINTIN BONE    Poem Text                    
First Line: I love the bold choir of the wild sea waves
Last Line: To fling the story on a thousand coasts.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Sea; Ocean


THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD AND OF THE SOUL, by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Why should I say I see the things I see not?
Last Line: May fix the entranced soul 'mid multitudes alone.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE MUSIC OF TIME, by PHILIP LEVINE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The young woman sewing by the window
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE MUSIC STRAIN, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Music strain, where do you go
Last Line: "hope and hark, and have no fear."
Subject(s): Death; Love; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Dead, The; Songs


THE MUSICAL CONQUERERS, by PHILIP AYRES    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Led by kind stars one ev'ning to the groves
Last Line: My eyes no less were charm'd at her angelic sight.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE MUSICIAN, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There was a good musician
Last Line: Ah! How his music stirs!
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


THE NEAPOLITANS TO MOZART, by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910)    Poem Text                    
First Line: Strange musical wizard! The spells of thine art
Last Line: Men have entertained angels ere now unawares!
Subject(s): Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791); Music & Musicians; Naples, Italy


THE NINTH SYMPHONY OF BEETHOVEN UNDERSTOOD .. SEXUAL MESSAGE, by ADRIENNE CECILE RICH    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A man in terror of impotence
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Happiness; Music & Musicians; Joy; Delight


THE OLD BAND, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It's mighty good to git back to the old town, shore
Last Line: I want to hear the old band play.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Bands; Kansas; Music & Musicians; Nostalgia; Orchestras


THE OLD FIFER, by NORMAN W. GILBERT    Poem Text                    
First Line: Did ever you hear the old fifer play
Last Line: But the merry old fifer may come no more.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE OLD FLUTE, by AUGUSTE ANGELLIER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The time will come when I no more can play
Last Line: To death's dim hall of silence and of rest.
Subject(s): Flutes; Music & Musicians


THE OLD GUITAR, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Neglected now is the old guitar
Last Line: Like that of the old guitar!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Aging; Guitars; Memory; Music & Musicians


THE OLD HAND-ORGAN, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Harsh-voiced it was, and shrill
Last Line: By shamefaced pennies as he played.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Organs (musical Instruments)


THE OLD MUSICIAN'S FATE, by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN KING    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He played so many instruments
Last Line: He's simply gone to sleep.
Alternate Author Name(s): King, Ben
Subject(s): Death; Music & Musicians; Dead, The


THE ORCHESTRA, by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The precise counterpart
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE ORGANIST, by HENRY CHAPPELL    Poem Text                    
First Line: Soft thro' the chancel casement
Last Line: Before the great white throne.
Subject(s): Angels; Death; Heaven; Music & Musicians; Dead, The; Paradise


THE PALACE OF BRIC-A-BRAC, by ANDREW LANG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Here, where old nankin glitters
Last Line: Aldine and elzevir!
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Music & Musicians


THE PASSIONS: AN ODE FOR MUSIC, by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759)    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When music, heavenly maid, was young
Last Line: Confirm the tales her sons relate!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE PASTORAL, by PIERRE LOUIS    Poem Text                    
First Line: The flute that melts beneath his spreading fingers
Last Line: My pastoral flute to your silver olympian lyre.
Alternate Author Name(s): Louys, Pierre
Subject(s): Flutes; Muses; Music & Musicians; Shepherds & Shepherdesses; Singing & Singers; Songs


THE PIANO AT RED'S, by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR.    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas a hole called red's saloon
Last Line: Back in red's saloon!
Alternate Author Name(s): Clark, Badger
Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Cowboys; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Pianos; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons


THE PIPER, by ISABEL ECCLESTONE MACKAY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I've heard the pipes of pan
Last Line: To follow the piper—pan!
Subject(s): Birds; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


THE PIPER, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Again I hear you piping, for I know the tune so well
Last Line: You can never pipe my fancy from my dear.
Alternate Author Name(s): Stevenson, Robert Lewis Balfour
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Pipers; Travel; Journeys; Trips


THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Pipes of the misty moorlands
Last Line: The pipes at lucknow played!
Subject(s): Havelock, Sir Henry (1795-1857); India - Sepoy Rebellion (1857); Lucknow, India; Music & Musicians


THE PIPES O' PAN, by HENRY VAN DYKE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Great nature had a million words
Last Line: Till music filled the pipes o' pan.
Alternate Author Name(s): Civis Americanus
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology)


THE PIPES OF PAN, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The pipes of pan! Not idler now
Last Line: Whetting his hunger on an empty shell.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Fantasy; Music & Musicians; Mythology - Classical; Pan (mythology)


THE POET'S TITLES, by PIERRE DE RONSARD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Holy euterpe teaches me to hate
Last Line: And athens' fame.
Subject(s): Athens, Greece; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Rome, Italy


THE POSTCARD AT VERTIGO BOOKS IN D. C., SELS, by REETIKA VAZIRANI    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In the photo of billie holiday at the 1957 newport jazz festival
Last Line: Look for it and it’s not there
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Famous People; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Photography & Photographers; Singing & Singers


THE POWER OF MUSIC, by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: High high those tones are beating, and how strong
Alternate Author Name(s): Roge, Mme.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE POWER OF MUSIC, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: O those sweet notes, so soft and faint; that seemed
Last Line: And I can neither laugh with thee nor weep.
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE POWER OF MUSIC, by SARAH JOSEPHA BUELL HALE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When orpheus struck his burning lyre
Last Line: Link'd with the golden harps above!
Alternate Author Name(s): Hale, Sara; Hale, Sarah Josepha
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE POWER OF MUSIC, by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: An orpheus! An orpheus! Yes, faith may grow bold
Last Line: Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!
Variant Title(s): Oxford Street
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE PSALMS, by OLIVER MURRAY EDWARDS    Poem Text                    
First Line: With ecstacy the heart responds
Last Line: Majestic and sublime.
Subject(s): Bible; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


THE RARE BIRDS; FOR TED BERRIGAN, by AMIRI BARAKA    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Brook no obscurity, merely plunging deeper
Last Line: Impressions, and it was a message, from like a very rare bird.
Alternate Author Name(s): Jones, Leroi
Subject(s): Berrigan, Ted (1934-1983); Birds; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Berrigan, Edmund Joseph; Songs


THE RECALL, OR SOUL MELODY, by ELIZABETH OAKES PRINCE SMITH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Nor dulcimer nor harp shall breathe
Last Line: Unto a deathless melody.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Seba (e. Oakes), Mrs.; Oakes-smith, Elizabeth
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Soul


THE RECITAL, by LLOYD SCHWARTZ    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: He sits there, staring into the keyboard--
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Cancer (disease); Death; Dead, The


THE REED, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As when the poet, muttering low
Last Line: "come,"" said she, ""sing thy reed-song through the world."
Subject(s): Civilization; Criticism & Critics; Justice; Music & Musicians; Nations; Poetry & Poets; United States; America


THE REHEARSAL, by ARTHUR SZE    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Xylophone, triangle, marimba, soprano, violin
Last Line: When what you want is no longer possible.
Subject(s): Desire; Music & Musicians


THE RENEWAL OF YOUTH, by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ah, could the soul, from all earth's loves set free
Last Line: Save the child's heart and trust as of the child.
Alternate Author Name(s): Myers, Frederic
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506); Explorers; Faith; Grief; Immortality; Music & Musicians; Teneriffe, Canary Islands; Exploring; Discovery; Discoverers; Belief; Creed; Sorrow; Sadness


THE REWARD OF SONG, by ALFRED NOYES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Why do we make our music?
Last Line: And love is its one reward.
Subject(s): Dreams; Fame; Love; Music & Musicians; Rewards; Singing & Singers; Nightmares; Reputation


THE ROUNDEL, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A roundel is wrought as a ring or a star-bright sphere
Last Line: A roundel is wrought.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Roundels


THE SAME OLD STORY, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The same old story told again
Last Line: "till ""time shall be no more."
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Grief; Love - Loss Of; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


THE SHRIEK OF PROMETHEUS, by HORACE SMITH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fresh was the breeze and the rowers plied
Last Line: Those throbbing hearts along the pontic shore.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): Argo (ship); Jason; Music & Musicians; Mythology; Prometheus


THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913)    Poem Text                    
First Line: When the twentieth century fadeth
Last Line: For the distant sake of us who sleep?
Subject(s): English Poetry - 19th Century; Hugo, Victor (1802-1885); Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Singing & Singers; Voices; Songs


THE SONG CHALICE, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You bear the chalice.' is it so, my friend?
Last Line: And, bearing thus, to pour it at his feet.
Subject(s): Harmonicas; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Songs


THE SONG OF THE CRICKET, by GRACE DENIO LITCHFIELD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Yes, the world is big, but I'll do my best
Last Line: Though I 'm neither a lark nor a linnet!
Subject(s): Birds; Music & Musicians


THE SONG OF THE LUTE PLAYER, by MARGARET LOUISA WOODS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Still as a star came to my breast
Last Line: To one long sigh, breathed from a shattered string.
Alternate Author Name(s): Woods, Mrs. Margaret Louisa Bradley
Subject(s): Lutes; Melodies; Music & Musicians


THE SONG OF THE SPHERES (IS THE SONG OF GOD), by N. B. NORMAN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Music has colors
Last Line: Song of the spheres.
Subject(s): God; Heaven; Music & Musicians; Paradise


THE SONG-SHOP, by ANNETTE WYNNE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Tink, tink, tink, / hear the pretty pieces clink
Last Line: Stars, and all-assorted things.
Subject(s): Children; January; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Childhood


THE SPELL, by PAUL VERLAINE    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The keyboard, over which two slim hands float
Last Line: A little open on the garden small?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE STORY OF PRINCE AGIB, by WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Strike the concertina's melancholy string!
Last Line: When a yesterday has faded from its page.
Alternate Author Name(s): Gilbert, W. S.
Subject(s): Grief; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


THE SUNDAYS OF SATIN-LEGS SMITH, by GWENDOLYN BROOKS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Inamoratas, with an approbation
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


THE TALE OF THE WHOLE-TONE SCALE: OR, THE LADY WHO DIDN'T PLAY VERDI, by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You, little lady, go all the way back to rossini?
Last Line: In the ranks of the youthful whose pranks live so long!
Subject(s): Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791); Music & Musicians; Women


THE THIRD SERMON ON THE WARPLAND, by GWENDOLYN BROOKS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The earth is a beautiful place
Last Line: You could make music too / the blackblues
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Phoenix (mythical Bird)


THE TRANSIT, by KATHLEEN JESSIE RAINE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: It was as if the ring had gone from the horizon
Last Line: But for the space of a thought it was as if it seemed.
Subject(s): Earth; Music & Musicians; World


THE TUNE, by JOHN COWPER POWYS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I played a crazy tune
Last Line: And the same waters flow.
Subject(s): Flowers; Love; Moon; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


THE UNHEARD, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One in the musical throng
Last Line: The song in her heart!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Flowers; Music & Musicians; Roses; Singing & Singers; Violins


THE VICTOR DOG, by JAMES INGRAM MERRILL    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Bix to buxtehude to boulez / the little white dog on the victor label
Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Music & Musicians; Sound Recordings; Trademarks; Phonograph Records; Recordings; Records; Audiodiscs; Discography


THE VIOLIN-PLAYER, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You who love music and comprehend
Last Line: Which are the beginning and end of art.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Violins; Vision


THE VOICE, by RICHARD WATSON GILDER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rich is the music of sweet instruments
Last Line: Or pale br¸nhilde moans her bitter fate.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Voices; Songs


THE VOICE OF MUSIC, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Whence is the might of thy master-spell?
Last Line: Links it with regions more bright than earth!
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE WEARY BLUES, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Droning a drowsy syncopated tune
Last Line: He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; Blues (music); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


THE WHISTLE OF SANDY MCGRAW, by ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine
Last Line: You wee penny whistle o' sandy mcgraw.
Subject(s): Death; Music & Musicians; War; World War I; Dead, The; First World War


THE WIDOW'S JAZZ, by MINA LOY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The white flesh quakes to the negro soul
Alternate Author Name(s): Cravan, Arthur, Mrs.; Lowy, Mina Gertrude; Haweis, Stephen, Mrs.
Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music; Chicago; Jazz; Music & Musicians


THE WORDS-AND-MUSIC MEN, by DAVID WAGONER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: They said they could make up songs
Subject(s): Language; Music & Musicians; Words; Vocabulary


THE WORLD'S MUSIC, by THOMAS NICOLL HEPBURN    Poem Text                    
First Line: The world's a very happy place
Last Line: And never, never sulk at all.
Alternate Author Name(s): Setoun, Gabriel
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


THE YOUNG CATS' CLUB FOR POETRY-MUSIC, by HEINRICH HEINE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The philharmonic young cats' club
Last Line: And simper'd and look'd the wiser.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Life; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Winter


THESE AGELESS THEMES, by KIRKE MECHEM    Poem Text                    
First Line: Ah, yes! It has been said a thousand times
Last Line: Shall tune their lyres to these eternal themes
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Writing & Writers


THIS BANTAM STAR, by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis            
First Line: Is this the blackbird's richest song
Last Line: Can match this little bantam star!'
Alternate Author Name(s): Davies, W. H.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Stars; Songs


THOSE EVENING BELLS, by THOMAS MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Those evening bells! Those evening bells!
Last Line: And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Bells; Grief; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


THREE ORCHESTRAL THEMES, by JOSEPH KLING    Poem Text                    
First Line: Nightfall... / I hear the fainting echo of a muezzin's last call
Last Line: Poet's dream of paradise...
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Rest; Symphonies; Orchestras; Concerts


THUNDER BY THE MUSICIAN, by WALLACE STEVENS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sure enough, moving, the thunder became men
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TIE-DOWN OF A BONSAI, by MARVIN BELL    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A ladder propped against a rainbow
Subject(s): Bonsai; Language; Music & Musicians; Rainbows; Words; Vocabulary


TIGHTENED STRINGS, by ELIZABETH B. ROBB    Poem Text                    
First Line: The charm of music's soul - elating voice
Last Line: There is no music but on tightened strings.
Subject(s): Hearts; Music & Musicians


TO - (1), by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis         Recitation     Poet's Biography
First Line: Music, when soft voices die
Last Line: Love itself shall slumber on.
Variant Title(s): Music;memory
Subject(s): Flowers; Love; Memory; Mourning; Music & Musicians; Roses; Bereavement


TO --, by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Half in the dim light from the hall
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO A CASTILIAN SONG, by SARA TEASDALE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: We held the book together timidly
Last Line: And not a breath divides my love from me!
Alternate Author Name(s): Filsinger, Ernest B., Mrs.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians


TO A CLASS IN SHAKESPEARE, by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE    Poem Text                    
First Line: Gossip of swains befooled by fairy charm
Last Line: Because they've walked together and with him.
Subject(s): Dramatists; Happiness; Humanity; Music & Musicians; Plays & Playwrights ; Poetry & Poets; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Teaching & Teachers; Joy; Delight; Dramatists; Educators; Professors


TO A COMPOSER, by ARTHUR SZE    Poem Source         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Red chair, blue chair, white chair, big chair, chair
Last Line: Become a style of living.
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians


TO A HERMIT THRUSH, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: Here in the shelter of tall, towering trees
Last Line: To form your hymn of praise, o hermit thrush!
Subject(s): Hermits; Music & Musicians; Quiet Life; Solitude; Loneliness


TO A MOCKING-BIRD IN THE PINE-TOP, by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Bird of the south-sweet songster!
Last Line: Shall live for immortality.
Subject(s): Birds; Happiness; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Joy; Delight


TO A POET AT THE PIANO (K.O), by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Not all unhappy,' said one wise of heart
Last Line: And fill the measure of each two-fold song.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


TO A VIOLIN, by BERTHA FRANCES GORDON    Poem Text                    
First Line: Strange shape, who moulded first thy dainty shell?
Last Line: To quench his thirst, and help his load to bear.
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians; Sound; Violins


TO ALPHONSO [ALFONSO] FERRABOSCO, ON HIS BOOK, by BEN JONSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: To urge, my loved alphonso, that bold fame
Last Line: Shed in thy songs; 'tis true: but short of thee.
Subject(s): Ferrabosco, Alphonso (1575-1628); Music & Musicians


TO BEETHOVEN, by CLARA BOYNTON HADLEY    Poem Text                    
First Line: What music did'st thou hear
Last Line: What thou did'st comprehend.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


TO BEETHOVEN, by SIDNEY LANIER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In o'er-strict calyx lingering
Last Line: 1876 - 7.
Subject(s): Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827); Composers; Music & Musicians


TO CAROLEE COOMBS-STACY, WHO SET MY VERSES TO MUSIC, by JAMES WRIGHT            Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: One afternoon a few years ago, in a mountain forest in upstate new
Alternate Author Name(s): Wright, James A.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


TO DOCTOR HAKE, by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In the beloved hour that ushers day
Last Line: And with a tide of song his silence broke.
Alternate Author Name(s): Stevenson, Robert Lewis Balfour
Subject(s): Dawn; Music & Musicians; Sunrise


TO E. M. O., by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oakeley, whenas the bass you beat
Last Line: But, when you touch a rib, he roars.
Alternate Author Name(s): Brown, T. E.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO EUTERPE, by EMILY BLANCHE MANN GROBY    Poem Text                    
First Line: Sweet goddess, when your songs come drifting down
Last Line: And words are luminous pearls from your tender mouth.
Subject(s): Euterpe (goddess); Music & Musicians


TO IONE, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: All day within me, sweet and clear
Last Line: I hear you singing -- singing.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Soul; Songs


TO JOSEPH JOACHIM, by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Belov'd of all to whom that muse is dear
Last Line: And every ear that heard thee stopt with dust.
Alternate Author Name(s): Bridges, Robert+(2)
Subject(s): Jews; Joachim, Joseph (1831-1907); Music & Musicians; Judaism


TO LAURA, PLAYING, by JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When o'er the chords, thy fingers steal
Last Line: Souls in elysium speak?
Alternate Author Name(s): Schiller, Friedrich Von
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO MISS ROSE BROUGHTON, NOW LADY ST. JOHN, ABERYSTWITH, JULY 5, 1799, by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Louisa, while thy pliant fingers trace
Last Line: Or spoil the heart's accordance with the face!
Alternate Author Name(s): Betham, Mary Matilda; Edwards, Matilda B.; Edwards, B. M.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO MR. MCG, by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We were all sad and could not weep
Last Line: To any threat'ning fears.
Subject(s): Grief; Happiness; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness; Joy; Delight


TO MUSIC, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: No, music, thou art not the 'food of love'
Last Line: Till it becomes all music murmurs of.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO MUSIC [TO BECALM HIS FEVER], by ROBERT HERRICK    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Charm me asleep, and melt me so
Last Line: For heaven.
Variant Title(s): Music
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO MUSIC; A FRAGMENT, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Silver key of the fountain of tears
Last Line: Is laid asleep in flowers.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Sleep


TO MUSICK, by ROBERT HERRICK    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Begin to charme, and as thou stroak'st mine eares
Last Line: And make me smooth as balme, and oile againe.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO MUSICK, TO BECALME A SWEET-SICK-YOUTH, by ROBERT HERRICK    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere
Last Line: Like to a slumbring bride, awake againe.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Sleep


TO MUSICK; A SONG, by ROBERT HERRICK    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Musick, thou queen of heaven, care-charming-spel
Last Line: To charme our soules, as thou enchant'st our eares.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO ONE BEYOND DEATH'S PORTALS, by ROBERT CARY    Poem Text                    
First Line: If you who loved so well the sonnet-form
Last Line: Grief's manuscript to music's lingering bar.
Subject(s): Death; Music & Musicians; Dead, The


TO PADEREWSKI, PATRIOT, by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Son of a martyred race, that long
Last Line: Shall plead for thy distracted land.
Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians; Paderewski, Ignacy Jan (1860-1941); World War I; First World War


TO PERCY BUCK, by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Folk alien to the muse have hemm'd us round
Last Line: Beside me, listening in the chancel-aisle.
Alternate Author Name(s): Bridges, Robert+(2)
Subject(s): Buck, Percy Carter (1871-1947); Harrow, England; Music & Musicians


TO THE EXCELLENT MASTER OF MUSIC, SIGNIOR PIETRO REGGIO, ON HIS SONGS, by THOMAS FLATMAN    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Tho' to advance thy fame, full well I know
Last Line: The raptures of thy voice, and miracles of thy hand?
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO THE ONE OF FICTIVE MUSIC, by WALLACE STEVENS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis         Recitation by Author     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sister and mother and diviner love
Last Line: The imagination that we spurned and crave.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TO THE PIANIST BILL EVANS, by BILL ZAVATSKY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When I hear you
Last Line: On taking our hands
Subject(s): Evans, Bill (1929-1980); Jazz; Music & Musicians


TO THE SAME, by BEN JONSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: When we do give, alphonso, to the light
Last Line: For fame, with breath soon kindled, soon blown out.
Subject(s): Ferrabosco, Alphonso (1575-1628); Music & Musicians


TO WAGNER, by GEORGE MURRAY (1830-1910)    Poem Text                    
First Line: Not the soft tones to lull a wine-drowsed ear
Last Line: Thence joys to make earth's life a happier thing.
Subject(s): Melodies; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers


TOCCATA IN D MINOR (BACH), by SUSAN D'ARCY CLARK    Poem Text                    
First Line: Breakers insistent, massive, persistent
Last Line: Rollers—far out in the night.
Subject(s): Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750); Composers; Music & Musicians


TODAY'S MUSIC, by ROBERT MCALMON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: His being started with music
Subject(s): Time; Music & Musicians


TORCH SONGS, by ROBERT WRIGLEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: I would speak of that grief
Subject(s): African Americans - Women; Blues (music); Grief; Holiday, Billie (1915-1959); Jazz; Love; Music & Musicians; Singing & Singers; Smith, Bessie (1894-1937); Sorrow; Sadness


TRANSCENDENTALISM: A POEM IN TWELVE BOOKS', by ROBERT BROWNING    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak?
Subject(s): Thought; Philosophy & Philosophers; Music & Musicians; Thinking


TRIUMPHANT MUSIC, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Wherefore and whither bear'st thou up
Last Line: Of joy no more -- bewildering harmony!
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


TRUMPET PLAYER, by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The negro / with the trumpet at his lips
Alternate Author Name(s): Hughes, Langston
Subject(s): African Americans; African Americans - Song & Music; Music & Musicians; Negroes; American Blacks


TSCHAIKOWSKY, by VIRGINIA WALLACE RUNYON    Poem Text                    
First Line: These things were his: the shuddering night wind
Last Line: He found at last a triumph in despair.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Tchaikovsky, Pytor Ilich (1840-1893); Tschaikovsky, Pytor Ilich


TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN: 1, by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: O cease, sweet music, let us rest
Last Line: Be still, and let us rest.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


UN POCO LOCO, by CLAYTON ESHLEMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Bud powell's story is never complete
Last Line: As the bastard spirit beyond her strength
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Powell, Bud (earl) (1924-1966)


UNCERTAINTY, by GLADYS CROMWELL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sometimes a phrase
Last Line: Are softly blown.
Subject(s): Doubt; Music & Musicians; Skepticism


UNDER DARK SKIES, by ROBERT CAMERON ROGERS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Under the dark skies across the amber sands
Last Line: Under dark skies.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


UNDINE, by JOHN LAWSON STODDARD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Spirit of como, whose rhythmical call
Last Line: Lured there to ecstasy, lulled there to sleep.
Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Love; Music & Musicians; Sleep


UNDINE: A SONG OF SPRING (FOR THE GUITAR), by CHARLES WHITWORTH WYNNE    Poem Text                    
First Line: What word wakes the woodland to music and life?
Last Line: Ting-a-ling, ring-a-ding spring.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cayzer, Charles
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Spring


UNHEARD MUSIC, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Men say that, far above our octaves, pierce
Last Line: When closely-twined arms relax again.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


UNRELENTING FLOOD, by WILLIAM MATTHEWS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Black key. White key. No
Alternate Author Name(s): Matthews, William Procter
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Tatum, Art (1910-1956)


UNSTRUNG, by ADA CAMBRIDGE    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My skies were blue, and my sun was bright
Last Line: Could never be tender and sweet again.
Alternate Author Name(s): Cross, George, Mrs.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


UNWRITTEN MUSIC, by LAURA M. LADLEY    Poem Text                    
First Line: So many lovely notes come to my ear
Last Line: And spring is here!
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


VARIATIONS FOR A SUMMER EVENING, by MICHAEL ANANIA    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Thank you and goodbye'
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Roach, Max (b. 1924); Young, Lester ('prez') (1909-1959)


VARIATIONS FOR TWO PIANOS, by DONALD JUSTICE    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: There is no music now in all arkansas
Subject(s): Arkansas; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Pianos


VARIATIONS: 13, by CONRAD AIKEN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Blue waves are driven by wind
Last Line: The querulous praise will soon be mute.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Death; Love - Complaints; Dead, The


VENICE BEACH: BRIEF SONG, by DOROTHY BARRESI    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Maybe zizi is right
Subject(s): Beiderbecke, Bix (1903-1931); Jazz; Music & Musicians; Music, Rock; Rock & Roll


VENICE: ROSE COLORED GLASSES, by KENNETH REXROTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Ten years, and it's still on the
Subject(s): Venice, Italy; Music & Musicians; Radio


VERSES ON TEXTS: CANT. 2, 14, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hast thou not heard within some sacred pile
Last Line: In calmest melody his sweet words roll.
Subject(s): God; Melodies; Music & Musicians


VERSES UNDER A PORTRAIT OF THOMAS BRITTON, A COAL MERCHANT, by MATTHEW PRIOR    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Though doomed to small-coal, yet to arts applied
Last Line: Had kneller painted, and had vertue graved.
Variant Title(s): Lines
Subject(s): Britton, Thomas (1644-1714); Coal Mines & Miners; Kneller, Sir Godfrey (1649-1723); Music & Musicians; Vertue, George (1684-1756); Kniller, Gottfried


VIOLIN AND VIOLA, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: At times, when, with an anguish all too keen
Last Line: The grave viola plaining of old loves.
Subject(s): Doves; Grief; Love - Loss Of; Music & Musicians; Violins; Sorrow; Sadness


VIOLIN SONGS: TWO IN ONE, by GEORGE MACDONALD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Were thou and I the white pinions
Last Line: Two thoughts in the heart of one lord.
Subject(s): Doves; God; Love; Music & Musicians; Sky


VIVA LA MUSICA, by THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Our house, that long in darkness dwelt
Last Line: And hear your latest scholar sing.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


VOICES (FOR JAMES LANE ALLEN), by VIRGINIA STAIT    Poem Text                    
First Line: I am not dead, I think
Last Line: Or flesh to dust made fast!
Subject(s): Allen, James Lane (1849-1925); Music & Musicians; Voices


WALKING PARKER HOME, by BOB KAUFMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind
Last Line: In raging fires of love.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955)


WAR MEMOIR: JAZZ, DON'T LISTEN TO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK, by BOB KAUFMAN    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: In the beginning, in the wet
Last Line: And feel, & die.
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians


WAR-TIME IN THE MOUNTAINS, by ANN COBB    Poem Text                    
First Line: Dulcimer over the fireboard, hanging sence allusago
Last Line: Beat and beget sons and daughters to sing the old songs at his feet.
Subject(s): Dulcimers; Kentucky; Mountains; Music & Musicians; Wellesley College; World War I; Hills; Downs (great Britain); First World War


WHAT ABOUT THIS, by FRANK STANFORD    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: A guy comes walking out of the garden
Subject(s): Shooting; Drinks & Drinking; Music & Musicians; Strangers; Wine


WHAT CAN STOP THIS, by DONALD REVELL    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What can stop this
Subject(s): Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets


WHAT THE DOG PERHAPS HEARS, by LISEL MUELLER    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: If an inaudible whistle
Alternate Author Name(s): Muller, Lisel
Subject(s): Animals; Dogs; Music & Musicians


WHAT THEN OF US, WE HUMBLE FIDDLING FOLK, by CLEMENT WOOD    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: What then of us, we humble fiddling folk
Last Line: Till the last mind forget its final dreaming.
Subject(s): Beauty; Fiddles; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments


WHEN KREISLER PLAYS, by ELEANOR G. R. YOUNG    Poem Text                    
First Line: He lifts his slender bow
Last Line: Your cherished dreams—that ever grow more real.
Subject(s): Kreisler, Fritz (1875-1962); Music & Musicians


WHILE LISTENING TO A SYMPHONY, by MARGARET LAURIE SEAMAN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Oh, you who seem so near when soft
Last Line: And having learned content, in your joy we are resting.
Subject(s): Bands; Music & Musicians; Symphonies; Orchestras; Concerts


WHITMAN, by LARRY LEVIS    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: On long island, they moved my clapboard house
Subject(s): Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955); Poetry & Poets; Popular Culture - United States; United States; Whitman, Walt (1819-1891); America


WHY, MINSTREL, THESE UNTUNEFUL MURMURINGS', by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
Last Line: To its sad lord, far from his native fields?
Subject(s): Homesickness; Longing; Loss; Music & Musicians


WITH CHAOS IN EACH KISS, by TIMOTHY LIU    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Outside your door, an ocean
Subject(s): Love; Music & Musicians; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men


WITH DEATH THE UNCOUTH, by DONALD EVANS    Poem Text                    
First Line: None could remember when he first came there
Last Line: New-cut gardenias for my head and feet.
Subject(s): Bands; Death; Music & Musicians; Orchestras; Dead, The


WITHIN AND WITHOUT, by GEORGE MACDONALD    Poem Text     Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Go thou into thy closet; shut thy door
Last Line: The poet awakes from his dream.
Variant Title(s): A Sonnet Sequence
Subject(s): Abandonment; Children; Christianity; Clergy; Death; Escapes; Exiles; Family Life; Future Life; God; Humility; Marriage; Music & Musicians; Poetry & Poets; Poverty; Redemption; Regret; Revenge; Salvation; Unfaithfulness; Desertion; Childhood; Priests; Rab


WOINOMOINEN'S MUSIC, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Then the ancient woinomoinen
Last Line: Through his jackets eight of wadmal
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


WORDS FOR MUSIC, by BYRON CHEW    Poem Text                    
First Line: Feet that are weary from far journeys, rest a spell
Last Line: Hear stories of far lands where rivers go.
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


YARDBIRD'S SKULL, by OWEN DODSON    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: The bird is lost
Subject(s): African Americans; Jazz; Music & Musicians; Parker, Charlie ('bird') (1920-1955); Skulls; Negroes; American Blacks


YOU CAN'T RHUMBOOGIE IN A BALL AND CHAIN, by ALICE FULTON    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You called the blues' loose black belly lover
Last Line: "“it’s your shade, this blood dress,” we say. “it’s you."
Subject(s): Jazz; Joplin, Janis (1943-1970); Music & Musicians


YOU THAT WONT TO MY PIPE'S SOUND, by THOMAS MORLEY    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
Last Line: Lirum, lirum, lirum, lirum
Subject(s): Music & Musicians


YOUR MUSIC, by PAULINE OGDEN    Poem Text                    
First Line: Your slender fingers drift across the keys
Last Line: Feeling that you are playing just for me.
Subject(s): Dreams; Music & Musicians; Musical Instruments; Pianos; Nightmares


YOUR TURN, by ANSELM HOLLO    Poem Text                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dewdrop ode sweet licks
Last Line: Make neurons dance in world muse impulse book
Subject(s): Cities; Melodies; Music & Musicians; Urban Life


YOUR VIOLIN, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Your violin! Ah me!
Last Line: Of paradise.
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): April; Music & Musicians; Trees; Violins


ZEPHRYUS BRINGS THE TIME, by ANONYMOUS    Poem Text                    
First Line: Zephyrus brings the time that sweetly scenteth
Last Line: "are like a desert, and cruel beasts devouring"
Subject(s): Birds;music & Musicians;singing & Singers


ZOOT, by KEVIN YOUNG    Poem Text         Poet Analysis             Poet's Biography
First Line: Speakeasy she
Last Line: Me, fa, fast, quick- / silvered -
Subject(s): Music & Musicians