From Anacreon
I wish to tune my quivering lyre
To deed of fame and notes of fire;
To echo, from its rising swell,
How heroes fought and nations fell,
When Atreus' sons advanced to war,
Or Tyrian Cadmus roved afar;
But still, to martial strains unknown,
My lyre recurs to love alone.
Fired with the hope of future fame,
I seek some nobler hero's name;
The dying chords are strung anew,
To war, to war, my harp is due.
With glowing strings, the epic strain
To Jove's great son I raise again;
Alcides and his glorious deeds,
Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds.
All, all in vain; my wayward lyre
Wakes silver notes of soft desire.
Adieu, ye chiefs renown'd in arms!
Adieu the clang of war's alarms!
To other deeds my soul is strung,
And sweeter notes shall now be sung;
My harp shall all its powers reveal,
To tell the tale my heart must feel;
Love, Love alone, my lyre shall claim,
In songs of bliss and sighs of flame.
Related quotes
Farewell To The Muse
Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.
This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing.
Though simple the themes of my rude flowing Lyre,
Yet even these themes are departed for ever;
No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire,
My visions are flown, to return, alas, never!
When drain'd is the nectar which gladdens the bowl,
How vain is the effort delight to prolong!
When cold is the beauty which dwelt in my soul,
What magic of Fancy can lengthen my song?
Can the lips sing of Love in the desert alone,
Of kisses and smiles which they now must resign?
Or dwell with delight on the hours that are flown?
Ah, no! for those hours can no longer be mine.
Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love?
Ah, surely Affection ennobles the strain!
But how can my numbers in sympathy move,
When I scarcely can hope to behold them again?
Can I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done,
And raise my loud harp to the fame of my Sires?
For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone!
For Heroes' exploits how unequal my fires!
Untouch'd, then, my Lyre shall reply to the blast--
'Tis hush'd; and my feeble endeavors are o'er;
And those who have heard it will pardon the past,
When they know that its murmurs shall vibrate no more.
And soon shall its wild erring notes be forgot,
Since early affection and love is o'ercast:
Oh! blest had my Fate been, and happy my lot,
Had the first strain of love been the dearest, the last.
Farewell, my young Muse! since we now can ne'er meet;
If our songs have been languid, they surely are few:
Let us hope that the present at least will be sweet--
The present--which seals our eternal Adieu.
A Supplication
Awake, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she
And I so lowly be
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Hark, how the strings awake!
And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.
Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure,
Too weak too wilt thou prove
My passion to remove;
Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by,
Bid thy strings silent lie,
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.
poem by Abraham Cowley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
On Æolus's Harp
Ethereal race, inhabitants of air,
Who hymn your god amid the secret grove;
Ye unseen beings, to my harp repair,
And raise majestic strains, or melt in love.
Those tender notes, how kindly they upraid,
With what soft woe they thrill the lover's heart!
Sure from the hand of some unhappy maid,
Who died for love, these sweet complainings part.
But hark! that strain was of a graver tone,
On the deep strings his hand some hermit throws;
Or he, the sacred Bard, who sat alone
In the drear waste, and wept his people's woes.
Such was the song which Zion's children sung,
When by Euphrates' stream they made their plaint;
And to such sadly solemn notes are strung
Angelic harps, to soothe a dying saint.
Methinks I hear the full celestial choir,
Through Heaven's high dome their awful anthem raise;
Now chanting clear, and now they all conspire
To swell the lofty hymn from praise to praise.
Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind,
Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string,
Smit with your theme, be in your chorus joined,
For, till you cease, my Muse forgets to sing.
poem by James Thomson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ode To Apollo
1.
In thy western halls of gold
When thou sittest in thy state,
Bards, that erst sublimely told
Heroic deeds, and sang of fate,
With fervour seize their adamantine lyres,
Whose chords are solid rays, and twinkle radiant fires.
2.
Here Homer with his nervous arms
Strikes the twanging harp of war,
And even the western splendour warms,
While the trumpets sound afar:
But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes.
3.
Then, through thy Temple wide, melodious swells
The sweet majestic tone of Maro's lyre:
The soul delighted on each accent dwells,--
Enraptur'd dwells,--not daring to respire,
The while he tells of grief around a funeral pyre.
4.
'Tis awful silence then again;
Expectant stand the spheres;
Breathless the laurell'd peers,
Nor move, till ends the lofty strain,
Nor move till Milton's tuneful thunders cease,
And leave once more the ravish'd heavens in peace.
5.
Thou biddest Shakespeare wave his hand,
And quickly forward spring
The Passions--a terrific band--
And each vibrates the string
That with its tyrant temper best accords,
While from their Master's lips pour forth the inspiring words.
6.
A silver trumpet Spenser blows,
And, as its martial notes to silence flee,
From a virgin chorus flows
A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity.
'Tis still! Wild warblings from the Aeolian lyre
Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire.
7.
Next thy Tasso's ardent numbers
Float along the pleased air,
Calling youth from idle slumbers,
Rousing them from Pleasure's lair:--
Then o'er the strings his fingers gently move,
And melt the soul to pity and to love.
8.
But when Thou joinest with the Nine,
And all the powers of song combine,
We listen here on earth:
Thy dying tones that fill the air,
And charm the ear of evening fair,
From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly birth.
poem by John Keats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Three Songs
The poet sang of a battle-field
Where doughty deeds were done,
Where stout blows rang on helm and shield
And a kingdom's fate was spun
With the scarlet thread of victory,
And honor from death's grim revelry
Like a flame-red flower was won!
So bravely he sang that all who heard
With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,
And they cried, "Let us blazon his name on high,
He has sung a song that will never die!"
Again, full throated, he sang of fame
And ambition's honeyed lure,
Of the chaplet that garlands a mighty name,
Till his listeners fired with the god-like flame
To do, to dare, to endure!
The thirsty lips of the world were fain
The cup of glamor he vaunted to drain,
And the people murmured as he went by,
"He has sung a song that will never die !"
And once more he sang, all low and apart,
A song of the love that was born in his heart:
Thinking to voice in unfettered strain
Its sweet delight and its sweeter pain;
Nothing he cared what the throngs might say
Who passed him unheeding from day to day,
For he only longed with his melodies
The soul of the one beloved to please.
The song of war that he sang is as naught,
For the field and its heroes are long forgot,
And the song he sang of fame and power
Was never remembered beyond its hour!
Only to-day his name is known
By the song he sang apart and alone,
And the great world pauses with joy to hear
The notes that were strung for a lover's ear.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Ode
The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Cloe is my real flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Cloe noted her desire,
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
But with my numbers mix my sighs:
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes.
Fair Cloe blushed: Euphelia frowned:
I sung and gazed: I played and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
Remarked, how ill we all dissembled.
poem by Matthew Prior
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Foresters
Clear as of old the great voice rings to-day,
While Sherwood's oak-leaves twine with Aldworth's bay:
The voice of him the master and the sire
Of one whole age and legion of the lyre,
Who sang his morning-song when Coleridge still
Uttered dark oracles from Highgate Hill,
And with new-launchèd argosies of rhyme
Gilds and makes brave this sombreing tide of time.
Far be the hour when lesser brows shall wear
The laurel glorious from that wintry hair-
When he, the sovereign of our lyric day,
In Charon's shallop must be rowed away,
And hear, scarce heeding, 'mid the plash of oar,
The
ave atque vale
from the shore!
To him nor tender nor heroic muse
Did her divine confederacy refuse:
To all its moods the lyre of life he strung,
And notes of death fell deathless from his tongue.
Himself the Merlin of his magic strain,
He bade old glories break in gloom again;
And so exempted from oblivious doom,
Through him these days shall fadeless break in bloom.
poem by William Watson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Parody
When first, Philander, first I came
Where Avon rolls his winding stream,
The nymphs, how brisk, the swains, how gay,
To see Asteria, queen of May!
The parsons round her praises sung!
The steeples with her praises rung!-
I thought no sight that e'er was seen
Could match the sight of Barel's Green!
But now, since old Eugenio died-
The chief of poets, and the pride-
Now, meaner bards in vain aspire
To raise their voice, to tune their lyre!
Their lovely season now is o'er;
Thy notes, Florelio, please no more!
Nor more Asteria's smiles are seen-
Adieu!-the sweets of Barel's Green!
poem by William Shenstone
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Address To Music
OH thou! whose soft, bewitching lyre,
Can lull the sting of pain to rest;
Oh thou! whose warbling notes inspire,
The pensive muse with visions blest;
Sweet music! let thy melting airs
Enhance my joys, and sooth my cares!
Is there enchantment in thy voice,
Thy dulcet harp, thy moving measure;
To bid the mournful mind rejoice,
To raise the fairy form of pleasure?
Yes, heav'nly maid! a charm is thine,
A magic art, a spell divine!
Sweet music! when thy notes we hear,
Some dear remembrance oft they bring,
Of friends belov'd, no longer near,
And days that flew on rapture's wing;
Hours of delight that long are past,
And dreams of joy, too bright to last!
And oft 'tis thine the soul to fire,
With glory's animating flame,
Bid valor's noble sons aspire
To win th' immortal wreath of fame
Thine too, the soft, expressive tones,
That pity, tender pity owns!
Oh harmony! celestial pow'r!
Thou syren of the melting soul!
In sorrow's reign, in pleasure's hour,
My heart shall own thy blest control;
And ever let thy moving airs,
Enhance my joys and sooth my cares!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure
The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure,
But Cloe is my real flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay—
When Cloe noted her desire
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
But with my numbers mix my sighs;
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes.
Fair Cloe blushed; Euphelia frowned:
I sung, and gazed; I played, and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
Remarked how ill we all dissembled.
poem by Matthew Prior
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Ode. The Merchant, To Secure
The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure:
But Cloe is my real flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre,
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Cloe noted her desire,
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
But with my numbers mix my sighs;
And, whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes.
Fair Cloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd:
I sung, and gazed: I play'd, and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
Remark'd how ill we all dissembled.
poem by Matthew Prior
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Threnody
O ye who claim to be our loyal friends
Come now and build for us a funeral pyre,
And lay our emptied bodies on the fire,
Pray for our souls, murmur your sad amens;
And while the gold and scarlet flame ascends
Let he who best can play upon the lyre,
Pluck slow regretful notes of deep desire,
Sing subtle songs of love that never ends.
and when at last the embers growing cold
Gather ye up our ashes in an urn
Of porphyry, and seek a forest old
There underneath some vast and mighty oak
choose ye our grave, spread over us a cloak
Of woven violets and filmy fern.
poem by Harry Crosby
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
O Black And Unknown Bards
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre?
Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?
Heart of what slave poured out such melody
As 'Steal away to Jesus'? On its strains
His spirit must have nightly floated free,
Though still about his hands he felt his chains.
Who heard great 'Jordan roll'? Whose starward eye
Saw chariot 'swing low'? And who was he
That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,
'Nobody knows de trouble I see'?
What merely living clod, what captive thing,
Could up toward God through all its darkness grope,
And find within its deadened heart to sing
These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope?
How did it catch that subtle undertone,
That note in music heard not with the ears?
How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown,
Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.
Not that great German master in his dream
Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars
At the creation, ever heard a theme
Nobler than 'Go down, Moses.' Mark its bars
How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir
The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung
Going to valorous deeds; such tones there were
That helped make history when Time was young.
There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,
That from degraded rest and servile toil
The fiery spirit of the seer should call
These simple children of the sun and soil.
O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,
You - you alone, of all the long, long line
Of those who've sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,
Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.
You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings;
No chant of bloody war, no exulting pean
Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings
You touched in chord with music empyrean.
You sting far better than you knew; the songs
That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed
Still live, - but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Cantata. Set By Mons. Galliard
Recit.
Beneath a verdant laurel's ample shade
His lyre to mournful numbers strung,
Horace, immortal bard supinely laid,
To Venus thus address'd the song;
Ten thousand little loves around,
Listening dwelt on every sound.
Ariet.
Potent Venus, bid thy son
Sound no more his dire alarms:
Youth on silent wings is flown;
Graver years come rolling on,
Spare my age unfit for arms:
Safe and humble let me rest,
From all amorous care released.
Potent Venus, bid thy son
Sound no more his dire alarms.
Recit.
Yet, Venus, why do I each morn prepare
The fragrant wreath for Cloe's hair?
Why, why do I all day lament and sigh,
Unless the beauteous maid be nigh?
And why all night pursue her in my dreams
Through flowery meads and crystal streams?
Recit.
Thus sung the bard, and thus the goddess spoke:
Submissive bow to Love's imperious yoke;
Every state and every age
Shall own my rule and fear my rage:
Compell'd by me, thy Muse shall prove
That all the world was born to love.
Ariet.
Bid thy destined lyre discover
Soft desire and gentle pain:
Often praise, and always love her;
Through her ear her heart obtain.
Verse shall please and sight shall move her,
Cupid does with Phoebus reign.
poem by Matthew Prior
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Thaumantia and Fame
Go Thaumantia,' said Jove, 'and descend from the sky,
'For Fame's golden clarion I hear;
'Go learn what great mortal's desert is so high
'As to ask notes so loud, sweet, and clear.
The goddess in haste met the starry wing'd dame,
And demands why her notes she does raise?
'For the greatest of patriots and heroes,' said Fame,
'Tell Jove it is Washington's praise!'
poem by Ann Eliza Bleecker from The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Ode. Supposed To Be Written On The Marriage Of A Friend
Thou magic lyre, whose fascinating sound
Seduced the savage monsters from their cave,
Drew rocks and trees, and forms uncouth around,
And bade wild Hebrus hush his listening wave;
No more thy undulating warblings flow
O'er Thracian wilds of everlasting snow!
Awake to sweeter sounds, thou magic lyre,
And paint a lover's bliss -- a lover's pain!
Far nobler triumphs now thy notes inspire,
For see, Eurydice attends thy strain;
Her smile, a prize beyond the conjuror's aim,
Superior to the cancelled breath of fame.
From her sweet brow to chase the gloom of care,
To check the tear that dims the beaming eye,
To bid her heart the rising sigh forbear,
And flush her orient cheek with brighter joy,
In that dear breast soft sympathy to move,
And touch the springs of rapture and of love.
Ah me! how long bewildered and astray,
Lost and benighted, did my footsteps rove,
Till sent by heaven to cheer my pathless ray,
A star arose -- the radiant star of love.
The God propitious joined our willing hands,
And Hymen wreathed us in his rosy bands.
Yet not the beaming eye, or placid brow,
Or golden tresses, hid the subtle dart;
To charms superior far than those I bow,
And nobler worth enslaves my vanquished heart;
The beauty, elegance, and grace combined,
Which beam transcendent from that angel mind.
While vulgar passions, meteors of a day,
Expire before the chilling blasts of age,
Our holy flame with pure and steady ray,
Its glooms shall brighten, and its pangs assuage;
By virtue (sacred vestal) fed, shall shine,
And warm our fainting souls with energy divine.
poem by William Cowper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Picture Of Sappho
I.
THOU! whose impassion'd face
The Painter loves to trace,
Theme of the Sculptor's art and Poet's story--
How many a wand'ring thought
Thy loveliness hath brought,
Warming the heart with its imagined glory!
II.
Yet, was it History's truth,
That tale of wasted youth,
Of endless grief, and Love forsaken pining?
What wert thou, thou whose woe
The old traditions show
With Fame's cold light around thee vainly shining?
III.
Didst thou indeed sit there
In languid lone despair--
Thy harp neglected by thee idly lying--
Thy soft and earnest gaze
Watching the lingering rays
In the far west, where summer-day was dying--
IV.
While with low rustling wings,
Among the quivering strings
The murmuring breeze faint melody was making,
As though it wooed thy hand
To strike with new command,
Or mourn'd with thee because thy heart was breaking?
V.
Didst thou, as day by day
Roll'd heavily away,
And left thee anxious, nerveless, and dejected,
Wandering thro' bowers beloved--
Roving where he had roved--
Yearn for his presence, as for one expected?
VI.
Didst thou, with fond wild eyes
Fix'd on the starry skies,
Wait feverishly for each new day to waken--
Trusting some glorious morn
Might witness his return,
Unwilling to believe thyself forsaken?
VII.
And when conviction came,
Chilling that heart of flame,
Didst thou, O saddest of earth's grieving daughters !
From the Leucadian steep
Dash, with a desperate leap,
And hide thyself within the whelming waters?
VIII.
Yea, in their hollow breast
Thy heart at length found rest!
The ever-moving waves above thee closing--
The winds, whose ruffling sigh
Swept the blue waters by,
Disturb'd thee not!--thou wert in peace reposing!
IX.
Such is the tale they tell!
Vain was thy beauty's spell--
Vain all the praise thy song could still inspire--
Though many a happy band
Rung with less skilful hand
The borrowed love-notes of thy echoing lyre.
X.
FAME, to thy breaking heart
No comfort could impart,
In vain thy brow the laurel wreath was wearing;
One grief and one alone
Could bow thy bright head down--
Thou wert a WOMAN, and wert left despairing!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
From The Spanish Of Placido
Enough of love! Let break its every hold!
Ended my youthful folly! for I know
That, like the dazzling, glister-shedding snow,
Celia, thou art beautiful, but cold.
I do not find in thee that warmth which glows,
Which, all these dreary days, my heart has sought,
That warmth without which love is lifeless, naught
More than a painted fruit, a waxen rose.
Such love as thine, scarce can it bear love's name,
Deaf to the pleading notes of his sweet lyre,
A frank, impulsive heart I wish to claim,
A heart that blindly follows its desire.
I wish to embrace a woman full of flame,
I want to kiss a woman made of fire.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Australian Muse
Uplift thy lyre, and touch the tender strings;
But leave unsung the epics of thy land
Til thou and time have made a song both grand
And mellow with thy long imaginings.
Breathe forth the secret whisperings of thy birth,
And play the soft tunes of thine infancy;
Nor sing the dull oft-told reality
Of worldly ways; but rather let the earth
Grow old; then sing the great songs of its youth.
Then thou, whilst ageing in the pass of time,
Add fame to fame, and rhyme to gloried rhyme
Till fit thy lyre is for song of Truth.
But now, a child-song sweet with laughs and
Tears,
And let the unripe ripen with the years.
poem by Leon Gellert
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Song
THE merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Chloe is my real flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre,
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Chloe noted her desire
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
But with my numbers mix my sighs:
And while I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.
Fair Chloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd:
I sung, and gazed: I play'd, and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
Remark'd, how ill we all dissembled.
poem by Matthew Prior
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!