Muse
In my youth's years, she loved me, I am sure.
The flute of seven pipes she gave in my tenure
And harked to me with smile -- without speed,
Along the ringing holes of the reed,
I got to play with my non-artful fingers
The peaceful songs of Phrygian village singers,
And the important hymns, that gods to mortals bade.
>From morn till night in oaks' silent shade
I diligently harked to the mysterious virgin;
Rewarding me, by chance, for any good decision,
And taking locks aside of the enchanting face,
She sometimes took from me the flute, such commonplace.
The reed became alive in consecrated breathing
And filled the heart with holiness unceasing.
poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
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Related quotes
Sufi
A broken reed. No longer
its feet in earth, its stalk in water;
what will become of it?
Taken by grace; cut; shaped
into new name, new form;
breathed into it, the breath of life;
the breath, heard by a song
unmanifest, that waits to be born
from cause to mind to sound:
how can this sound be described,
the joy of broken reed now flute?
Now the reed can sing; speaks
of how it cried its loss;
yearned to find itself again;
knowing in its heart
that wholeness waits, somewhere, for ever;
now it sings for joy, so purely that
no ears, no heart, can resist its call;
nevermore to part the reed, the flute, the song.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Flute Lads!
I flute the up and down of sun,
I flute the pallid moon,
I flute the rivers deep and wide
And down the merry tide.
I leave the rose so red
And pluck the lily white;
I flute upon my bed
And play into the night.
If I could flute forever
And play a merry tune,
Then I would know no sorrow
In April, May, and June.
So up and down the golden sun
And up the pallid moon,
Flute my lovely lads, flute,
In April, May, and June.
poem by Samuel Hardman
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0245 The Sound of The Flute
Listen to the sound of this reed-flute –
hear what it says. First, it laments
its banishment; its tearing away
from its home, its reed-bed. And
this alone, tears at the yearning heart
of all those whose heart feels far from home.
Listen to it.
Then behind its breathy air
is fire – the fire of love; that sound
which tells every love-story in the world,
of lovers, parted, yearning to be
together once more. This flute first
tells of separation; then of unity.
Listen to it.
Do not listen to this dangerous
flute, unless you wish to hear
the innermost secrets of your heart –
the parting and the separation,
the yearning, yearning, for return –
Dare you listen to this story of pain, of love?
Listen to it.
(freely taken from the Prologue to Book I of the Masnavi I Ma’navi
of Maulana Jalalu’din Muhammad Rumi, the founder Dervish)
poem by Michael Shepherd
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When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
quote by Khalil Gibran
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When I am asleep and crumbling in the tomb
When I am asleep and crumbling in the tomb, should you come
to visit me, I will come forth with speed.
You are for me the blast of the trumpet and the resurrection,
so what shall I do? Dead or living, wherever you are, there am I.
Without your lip I am a frozen and silent reed; what melodies
I play the moment you breathe on my reed!
Your wretched reed has become accustomed to your sugar lip;
remember wretched me, for I am seeking you.
When I do not find the moon of your countenance, I bind up
my head [veil myself in your mourning]; when I do not find your
sweet lip, gnaw my own hand.
~ Game Of Songs ~
GAME OF SONGS
Ms. Nivedita
UK
[To Poet John Knight ~ Christmas poetic nosegays]
December 15,2009.
Standing you’re
On the opposite bank
Of my song,
Ambulant my tunes become
Me, don’t get you.
Breeze is blowing
Oh, oh excellently
Keep anchored the boat
No more.
Cross and come, O Dear
Into the abode of my bosom.
Game of songs with you
Game of distance is,
Me in agony play flute
All the time,
When, O Dear yourself will come
Take my flute to play,
In the dense darkness of
Rapture-full silent night.
-
Adapted from RNT [Ref. to ‘Bliss’ for further info]
------
Copyright reserved by the author
poem by Ms. Nivedita Bagchi Spc. Uk.
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Syrinx
Pan's Syrinx was a girl indeed,
Though now she's turned into a reed;
From that dear reed Pan's pipe does come,
A pipe that strikes Apollo dumb;
Nor flute, nor lute, nor gittern can
So chant it as the pipe of Pan:
Cross-gartered swains and dairy girls,
With faces smug and round as pearls,
When Pan's shrill pipe begins to play,
With dancing wear out night and day;
The bagpipe's drone his hum lays by,
When Pan sounds up his minstrelsy;
His minstrelsy! O base! this quill,
Which at my mouth with wind I fill,
Puts me in mind, though her I miss,
That still my Syrinx' lips I kiss.
In the spirit of Rumi - 27
‘O My Beloved –
I lose myself in the world’s distracting multiplicity,
yet cannot find the One in my restless mind –
I am in a desert place, a place of desolation… ’
My Beloved said
see the reeds, gently swaying like swooning dervishes
on the river bank, their feet in the water –
a man could sit for hours and watch them –
are they not beautiful?
See now the reed-flute, so carefully crafted,
waiting there to sound out sadness, love and joy –
is it not beautiful?
See the musician – how his eyes shine
with the music in his soul!
Is he not beautiful?
Hear the music that he plays –
telling its stories of life and death, of heaven and earth –
is it not beautiful?
Now watch him as he plays
the music which is himself
on the flute made from the willing reed –
am I not the One you hear in this?
I am beautiful in My Oneness;
I am beautiful in My multiplicity;
Is there a greater miracle than this?
And you, the witness of all this in Me –
is there a greater miracle than yourself?
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Snakes
Open the basket
Listen to the flute play
Open the basket
Listen to the flute play
Toot toot toot play
Snakes in the basket
Lie to lead you astray
Snakes in the basket
Force to make you betray
Your innermost truth hidden away
Now you're falling down to the underground
Slither down to your lair
Hidden in the many trenches of a hopeless war
Those who were sold out by a corporate board
Carry the casket
Never mind the gun spray
Bury the casket
Pawns in someone's gameplay
Shoot shoot shoot obey
Now you're falling down to the underground
Slither down to your lair
Hidden in the many trenches of a hopeless war
Those who were sold out by a corporate board
Listen to the flute play
Listen to the flute play
Listen to the flute play
Subscription to the spreading of lies
Soldier catches a glimpse of his demise deep down inside
Even he knows snakes come in many shapes and sizes
Many shapes and sizes
Snakes have no hands to be tied
Concoction of malicious lies
Deep inside the general despises himself
Listen to the flute play
Another reptile in line
Snakes without grass cannot hide
Now you're falling down to the underground
Slither down to your lair
Hidden in the many trenches of a hopeless war
Those who were sold out by a corporate board
Now you're falling down to the underground
Slither down to your lair
Forked tongues spread the poison with another toxic sting
So much pain their serpentine inhibitions bring
Oh - listen to the flute play
Listen to the flute play
Listen to the flute play
Listen to the flute play
Open the basket
Open the basket
Listen to the flute play
Open the basket
Listen to the flute play
Listen to the flute play
Go ahead
Listen to the flute play
Open the basket
Oh - open the basket
song performed by by No Doubt from Beacon Street Collection
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pan at Lane Cove
SCALY with poison, bright with flame,
Great fungi steam beside the gate,
Run tentacles through flagstone cracks,
Or claw beyond, where meditate
Wet poplars on a pitchy lawn.
Some seignior of colonial fame
Has planted here a stone-cut faun
Whose flute juts like a frozen flame.
O lonely faun, what songs are these
For skies where no Immortals hide?
Why finger in this dour abode
Those Pan-pipes girdled at your side?
Your Gods, and Hellas too, have passed,
Forsaken are the Cyclades,
And surely, faun, you are the last
To pipe such ancient songs as these.
Yet, blow your stone-lipped flute and blow
Those red-and-silver pipes of Pan.
Cold stars are bubbling round the moon,
Which, like some golden Indiaman
Disgorged by waterspouts and blown
Through heaven's archipelago,
Drives orange bows by clouds of stone . . .
Blow, blow your flute, you stone boy, blow!
And, Chiron, pipe your centaurs out,
The night has looped a smoky scarf
Round campanili in the town,
And thrown a cloak about Clontarf.
Now earth is ripe for Pan again,
Barbaric ways and Paynim rout,
And revels of old Samian men.
O Chiron, pipe your centaurs out.
This garden by the dark Lane Cove
Shall spark before thy music dies
With silver sandals; all thy gods
Be conjured from Ionian skies.
Those poplars in a fluting-trice
They'll charm into an olive-grove
And dance a while in Paradise
Like men of fire above Lane Cove.
poem by Kenneth Slessor
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A Musical Instrument
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.
'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed while he sat by the river),
'The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, --
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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The Disagreeable Musician
'E wouldn't play the flute; the sulky cow.
An', after all the trouble that we took
To try an' cheer,'is spirits up some'ow,
'E jes' sat there an' slung a glarsy look
To orl the crowd. The diserbligin' coot!
'E wouldn't play the flute.
After we'd done our gilt in on the spread
Fish from the Dago joint, an' bottled beer,
An' froot, an' 'am, an' saverloys an' bread
'E wouldn't eat. Jes' shook 'is silly 'ead.
An' though we begged 'im for some choonful toot,
'E wouldn't play the flute.
I puts it to yeh: Wuz we actin' fair?
Wot more could neighbors do to cheer a bloke?
We knoo they 'e 'ad troubles fer to bear,
An' jes called in to 'ave a friendly joke.
An', though we tempted 'im with 'am an' froot,
'E wouldn't play the flute.
There wuz Flash Liz, an' me, an' Ginger Mick.
An' Mother Gumphy frum the corner store.
An' Bill the Rabbit-o, an' Dirty Dick,
An' Nan the Nark, an' 'arf a dozzing more.
But strike! It seemed the comp'ny didn't soot!
'E wouldn't play the flute.
I want yer dead straight griffen. Wuz we right?
Wuz it unneighborly to look 'im up
An' 'ave a little beano on the quite?....
Fer Grief an' 'im wuz cobbers on that night.
But there 'e sat, like 's if 'e'd taken root,
An' wouldn't play the flute.
We sung a song er two to give 'im 'eart,
'An' jes' to show yeh wot a nark 'e wuz,
'E wouldn't sing. 'E wouldn't take no part.
'E wouldn't eat no matter wot we does.
'E wouldn't drink, 'e wouldn't touch the froot.
Or play 'is flamin' flute.
A blimed wet blankit at our little feast.
Thet's wot 'e wuz. 'E jes sat there an' stared
Straight out afore 'im. Wouldn't take the least
Account o' wot we did. 'E'd never cared
If we wuz rooned wif buyin' fish an' froot.
'E wouldn't play the flute.
Aw, it wuz crook! I swear I never seen
So mean a coot. An' 'e could play a treat
Play like a blinded angel, for 'e'd been
A star pufformer - played afore the Queen!
An', though 'e knoo we knoo of 'is repute,
'E wouldn't play the flute.
We knoo 'e'd been a bonzer in 'is day
Afore 'e struck the slum in Scrooge's Lane.
I've orfen 'eard it said 'e useter play
In some swell orchestrer fer fancy pay.
An' there 'e sat, in 'is ole shabby soot,
An' wouldn't play the flute.
We knoo 'e'd struck tough luck an' drifted down
'Im an' 'is missis - till they come to live
On 'arf o' nothink in our part o' town.
It weren't no fault of ours that they wuz driv
Frum bad to worse, till they wuz destichoot.
'E wouldn't play the flute.
'E wouldn't play. Jes shook 'is silly 'ead.
We done our best to cheer 'im, fer we knoo
'Is wife wuz lyin' in the nex' room, dead.
Died 'cause of sooicide, the neighbors said.
But, spite of all we done, the selfish brute,
'E wouldn't play the flute.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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There was an Old Man with a flute,
A serpent ran into his boot;
But he played day and night,
Till the serpent took flight,
And avoided that man with a flute.
by Edward Lear from A Book of Nonsense (1846)
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You got to play the flute as a flute, like that. You can't play like a tenor concept on soprano; it sounds wrong. But some guys do it, and they think it's O.K., but not so!
quote by Jerome Richardson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love of Radha, Lord Krishna!
Radha was Krishna's Love,
Nay, Radha was Krishna's part,
Krishna was Radha heart,
She came dancing to tune of flute,
She was breath of his music,
She filled his Murali with Love divine,
He made her spine his flute,
Chakras become seven holes of flute,
played strange notes, became her light and joy,
Sitting below lean against tree,
with legs stretched like kind loving mother,
She took his head in her lap,
Love talked for hours in silence,
Her face Krishna saw in his own light,
And in her eyes his own figure,
In her heart his own face,
Love is that lamp glowing in her heart,
light of love spread whole world,
even the Sun and moon reflected Radha's love!
He became her smile,
she laughed his hearts joy,
She shed tears of his pain,
Never cared for shame and blame,
Never showed shyness,
As her star like love shines
Sound was there companionship,
Innocent she was about his divinity,
He gave his all to her plain love without vanity!
Radha, Radha was Krishna's breath sounded,
Krishna, Krishna her heart danced,
No jealousy no possessiveness,
Radha was great and her love too,
No touch of selfishness, love's spotless devotion,
Pure was heart without corruption,
Her love revolved around Him,
Just as Earth around the Sun,
Or moon around the earth!
Sometimes she was satellite,
Sometimes she is star or planet,
Her love shined in the sky,
Shaded clouds shy red at dawn and dusk,
Golden sun rays of dawn, adorned her love,
white face of high clouds shy to red,
Black low clouds shed tears when krishna was a bit late,
Cooling the burn,
to put off the fire of longing!
Radha was nature and she was filled with Krishna's spirit,
Radha was great to make Krishna Great,
She was her Guru, she became his motherlike at times,
She was friend and guide,
Never enjoyed his downward slide,
He filled her breath in his heart and mind,
Made it wide and light,
Prepared him for his high flight
No internal fight, every thing straight and her heart was ever light
Filled with eternal love's light
She taught every thing in love is always right,
When only heart is light
with love's innocent purity extreme!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
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Writing Melodies To Dust Off Wind
sit at keyboard slave in serfdom
writing melodies to dust off wind
sing crystal mellow memories
sit at table scribe with candle
illuminating pieces of parchment
sow seeds of enlightenment on wind
sit on rock time lost flute play
play melodies on mystical reed pipe
each note soft dances on the wind
sit on throne prince of peace in heaven
may radiant holy spirit infuse bless all creation
smile sweeps across cosmos on solar wind
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Ode On A Grecian Urn
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
poem by John Keats
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Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can't really sing, who speak their songs.
quote by Stephen Malkmus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Street Dancer
I ask a street dancer-Why do you dance?
This street is my grand stage,
The passers-by are my precious audience,
Little rupees they gave me are least important,
I dance to the tune of drums and flute,
As my feet dance to the music, bangles ringing,
My body floats with my spirit,
At the very peak of ecstasy,
the noise of the street is silent to me,
and I feel the madonna in me.
When I dance, the pain of this world disappears,
sadness is a far distance,
I see beauty and colours surrounding me,
I hear music in my heart,
Filling it with love and satisfaction.
When night comes to visit,
and the dance come to a close,
I rest my tired body-
And dream, a beautiful dancer dancing to a prince.
poem by Spiritual Seeker
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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 eats bread and onions with one hand
And copies music with the other.
He is fat and has a bald head,
So I do not look at him,
But run quickly past his window.
There is always the sky to look at,
Or the water in the well!
But when night comes and he plays his flute,
I think of him as a young man,
With gold seals hanging from his watch,
And a blue coat with silver buttons.
As I lie in my bed
The flute-notes push against my ears and lips,
And I go to sleep, dreaming.
poem by Amy Lowell
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