Music, In A Foreign Language

Related poetry:

1. No More Music The Porch was blazoned with geranium bloom; Myrtle and jasmine meadows lit the lea; With rose and violet the vale’s perfume Languished to where the hyacinthine sea Dreamed tenderly. . . “And I must go,” said he. He spoke in that dim, ghostly voice of his: “I was a singer; then the Was. . . […]...
2. Music The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute. From my bed I can hear him, And the round notes flutter and tap about the room, And hit against each other, Blurring to unexpected chords. It is very beautiful, With the little flute-notes all about me, In the darkness. In the daytime, The neighbour […]...
3. Italian Music in Dakota THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all, Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds, In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes, Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial, (Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before, Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here, Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the […]...
4. Loud Music My stepdaughter and I circle round and round. You see, I like the music loud, the speakers Throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so Each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut. But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is four And likes the music […]...
5. Promises Like Pie-Crust Promise me no promises, So will I not promise you: Keep we both our liberties, Never false and never true: Let us hold the die uncast, Free to come as free to go: For I cannot know your past, And of mine what can you know? You, so warm, may once have been Warmer towards […]...
6. To The One Of Fictive Music Sister and mother and diviner love, And of the sisterhood of the living dead Most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom, And of the fragrant mothers the most dear And queen, and of diviner love the day And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown […]...
7. Some Foreign Letters I knew you forever and you were always old, Soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold Me for sitting up late, reading your letters, As if these foreign postmarks were meant for me. You posted them first in London, wearing furs And a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety. I read […]...
8. Celestial Music I have a friend who still believes in heaven. Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God. She thinks someone listens in heaven. On earth she’s unusually competent. Brave too, able to face unpleasantness. We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it. I’m always […]...
9. Perplexed Music EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand, Whence harmonies, we cannot understand, Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds Fall on us while we hear, and countermand Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland With nightingales in visionary wolds. We murmur ‘ […]...
10. Music To Me Is Like Days Once played to attentive faces Music has broken its frame Its bodice of always-weak laces The entirely promiscuous art Pours out in public spaces Accompanying everything, the selections Of sex and war, the rejections. To jeans-wearers in zipped sporrans It transmits an ideal body Continuously as theirs age. Warrens Of plastic tiles and mesh throats […]...
11. Transcription Of Organ Music The flower in the glass peanut bottle formerly in the kitchen crooked to take a place in the light, The closet door opened, because I used it before, it kindly stayed open waiting for me, its owner. I began to feel my misery in pallet on floor, listening to music, my misery, that’s why I […]...
12. Music I tied together A few slender reeds, cut Notches to breathe across and made Such music you stood Shock still and then Followed as I wandered growing Moment by moment Slant-eyes and shaggy, my feet Slamming over the rocks, growing Hard as horn, and there You were behind me, drowning In the music, letting The […]...
13. Music I PRELUDE Daughter of Psyche, pledge of that last night When, pierced with pain and bitter-sweet delight, She knew her Love and saw her Lord depart, Then breathed her wonder and her woe forlorn Into a single cry, and thou wast born? Thou flower of rapture and thou fruit of grief; Invisible enchantress of the […]...
14. That Music Always Round Me THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning-yet long untaught I did not hear; But now the chorus I hear, and am elated; A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of day-break I hear, A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves, A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under […]...
15. An Old Man At the back of the noisy café Bent over a table sits an old man; A newspaper in front of him, without company. And in the scorn of his miserable old age He ponders how little he enjoyed the years When he had strength, and the power of the word, and good looks. He knows […]...
16. Foreign Lands Up into the cherry tree Who should climb but little me? I held the trunk with both my hands And looked abroad in foreign lands. I saw the next door garden lie, Adorned with flowers, before my eye, And many pleasant places more That I had never seen before. I saw the dimpling river pass […]...
17. Foreign Children Little Indian, Sioux, or Crow, Little frosty Eskimo, Little Turk or Japanee, Oh! don’t you wish that you were me? You have seen the scarlet trees And the lions over seas; You have eaten ostrich eggs, And turned the turtle off their legs. Such a life is very fine, But it’s not so nice as […]...
18. The Foreign Land A woman is a foreign land, Of which, though there he settle young, A man will ne’er quite understand The customs, politics, and tongue. The foolish hie them post-haste through, See fashions odd, and prospects fair, Learn of the language, “How d’ye do,” And go and brag they have been there. The most for leave […]...
19. To Foreign Lands I HEARD that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle, the New World, And to define America, her athletic Democracy; Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you wanted....
20. Sonnet 128: How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st, Upon that blessèd wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, […]...
21. Forgotten Language Once I spoke the language of the flowers, Once I understood each word the caterpillar said, Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings, And shared a conversation with the housefly In my bed. Once I heard and answered all the questions Of the crickets, And joined the crying of each falling […]...
22. On Music When through life unblest we rove, Losing all that made life dear, Should some notes we used to love, In days of boyhood, meet our ear, Oh! how welcome breathes the strain! Wakening thoughts that long have slept, Kindling former smiles again In faded eyes that long have wept. Like the gale, that sighs along […]...
23. Thing Language This ocean, humiliating in its disguises Tougher than anything. No one listens to poetry. The ocean Does not mean to be listened to. A drop Or crash of water. It means Nothing. It Is bread and butter Pepper and salt. The death That young men hope for. Aimlessly It pounds the shore. White and aimless […]...
24. Love's Language How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye – The smile that proves the parent to a sigh – Thus doth Love speak. How does Love speak? By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak Of bounding […]...
25. Let Me Not Forget If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life Then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight – let me not forget for a moment, Let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams And in my wakeful hours. As my days pass in the crowded market […]...
26. I lost a World the other day! I lost a World the other day! Has Anybody found? You’ll know it by the Row of Stars Around its forehead bound. A Rich man might not notice it Yet to my frugal Eye, Of more Esteem than Ducats Oh find it Sir for me!...
27. Music's Empire First was the world as one great cymbal made, Where jarring winds to infant Nature played. All music was a solitary sound, To hollow rocks and murm’ring fountains bound. Jubal first made the wilder notes agree; And Jubal tuned music’s Jubilee; He call’d the echoes from their sullen cell, And built the organ’s city where […]...
28. The Universal Language Of Love There is a universal language that is spoken by all – Both on earth and in the heavens above. It’s a beautiful language that flows from the heart And it’s universal name is love. The language of love uses thoughts and feelings To express what it wants to say, It’s the language that God uses […]...
29. Many a phrase has the English language Many a phrase has the English language I have heard but one Low as the laughter of the Cricket, Loud, as the Thunder’s Tongue Murmuring, like old Caspian Choirs, When the Tide’s a’ lull Saying itself in new inflection Like a Whippoorwill Breaking in bright Orthography On my simple sleep Thundering its Prospective Till I […]...
30. It does not matter in what language one writes It does not matter in what language one writes. All language is foreign, incomprehensible. Every word, as soon as pronounced, Flees far away, where nothing or nobody can reach it. It does not matter how much is known. Nobody can read. Nobody knows what a lightning is And even less when it is reflected In […]...
31. Foreign Missions in Battle Array An endless line of splendor, These troops with heaven for home, With creeds they go from Scotland, With incense go from Rome. These, in the name of Jesus, Against the dark gods stand, They gird the earth with valor, They heed their King’s command. Onward the line advances, Shaking the hills with power, Slaying the […]...
32. Translation From the Gull Language ‘Twas grav’d on the Stone of Destiny, In letters four, and letters three; And ne’er did the King of the Gulls go by But those awful letters scar’d his eye; For he knew that a Prophet Voice had said “As long as those words by man were read, The ancient race of the Gulls should […]...
33. Music, When Soft Voices Die Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on....
34. The fascinating chill that music leaves The fascinating chill that music leaves Is Earth’s corroboration Of Ecstasy’s impediment ‘Tis Rapture’s germination In timid and tumultuous soil A fine estranging creature To something upper wooing us But not to our Creator...
35. Music This shape without space, This pattern without stuff, This stream without dimension Surrounds us, flows through us, But leaves no mark. This message without meaning, These tears without eyes This laughter without lips Speaks to us but does not Disclose its clue. These waves without sea Surge over us, smooth us. These hands without fingers […]...
36. Water Music The words are a beautiful music. The words bounce like in water. Water music, Loud in the clearing Off the boats, Birds, leaves. They look for a place To sit and eat No meaning, No point....
37. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET SICK YOUTH Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere, On this sick youth work your enchantments here! Bind up his senses with your numbers, so As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe. Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keep Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep: That done, then let him, dispossess’d […]...
38. Music: An Ode WAS it light that spake from the darkness, Or music that shone from the word, When the night was enkindled with sound Of the sun or the first-born bird? Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage Of seasons that fall and rise, Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, And blinded with light that dies, […]...
39. Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly, Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds […]...
40. The Sorrow Of Love The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Had blotted out man’s image and his cry. A girl arose that had red mournful lips And seemed the greatness of the world in tears, Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships […]...