Tides of the Latter Rain

The high tides sweep the soul
Washed with golden branches of joy
Ships of Orpheus sail
Decadence has blended
We can be Holy
Your silk is smooth as kisses
Great wet kisses of magnolia serpents
Blue green sea with bright waves

Prayer rises like ancient fire
Time is a muse of Eve
I am the walls of agates
Rocks cleansed by the tide
Eagles come again to my dreams
Your rings are wet
You think of me like a sword
You are a child of the prophet Joel

The tides of the latter rain come again

poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Luminous Hour

Far on the hill flute-sounds.

Fauns lurk in the marshes,

Where sluggishly the slender nymphs

Rest hidden in reed and seaweed.

In the pond's mirror-glass

Golden butterflies ecstacize,

Quietly an animal with two backs

Moves in the velvety grass.

Sobbing in the birch grove

Orpheus breathes tender love-babble,

[...] Read more

poem by Georg Trakl
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Orpheus

? or John Fletcher.

ORPHEUS with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
   Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
   There had made a lasting spring.

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
   Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
   Killing care and grief of heart
   Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

poem by William Shakespeare
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Music Shines

I love wind concertos,
romantic guitars, violins
and fine symphonies,
maestros in concert and
Elvis the King singing
those sweet melodies.

Give to me calm and solitude
idle moments with peace
sublime, and all I'd ask then
is a resting place, with love
songs to soothe my mind.

How romantic was music
from the old world, when each
high mountain top bowed
as Orpheus, his rhythm played
and trees reached up to a cloud.

Where would we be without music?

[...] Read more

poem by Joyce Hemsley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Bible is an antique Volume

1545

The Bible is an antique Volume—
Written by faded men
At the suggestion of Holy Spectres—
Subjects—Bethlehem&mdash ;
Eden—the ancient Homestead—
Satan—the Brigadier—
Judas—the Great Defaulter—
David—the Troubador—
Sin—a distinguished Precipice
Others must resist—
Boys that "believe" are very lonesome—
Other Boys are "lost"—
Had but the Tale a warbling Teller—
All the Boys would come—
Orpheus' Sermon captivated—
It did not condemn—

poem by Emily Dickinson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Chorus from Hellas

The world`s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faith and empires gleam,
Like a wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulyssses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore...

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Power Of Music

AN Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, Faith may grow bold,
And take to herself all the wonders of old;--
Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same
In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.

His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim--
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest.

As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So He, where he stands, is a centre of light;
It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-browed Jack,
And the pale-visaged Baker's, with basket on back.

[...] Read more

poem by William Wordsworth
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet VI: The Kiss

What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.
I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The House of the Life: The Kiss

What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

I was a child beneath her touch, -- a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, --
A spirit when her spirit looked through me, --
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Kiss

What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.

I was a child beneath her touch, -- a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, --
A spirit when her spirit looked through me, --
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XLIIII

When those renoumed noble Peres of Greece,
thrugh stubborn pride amongst the[m]selues did iar
forgetfull of the famous golden fleece,
then Orpheus with his harp theyr strife did bar.
But this continuall cruell ciuill warre,
the which my selfe against my selfe doe make:
whilest my weak powres of passions warreid arre.
no skill can stint nor reason can aslake.
But when in hand my tunelesse harp I take,
then doe I more augment my foes despight:
and griefe renew, and passions doe awake,
to battaile fresh against my selfe to fight.
Mongst whome the more I seeke to settle peace,
the more I fynd their malice to increace.

poem by Edmund Spenser
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

0037 Ode to the Patience of a Yawning Audience

O come sweet sleep, and close my eyes with verse!
with drowsy metre, meet a deeper sleep;
to sleep, to dream, I never am averse -
to slumber numbed by poet's numbers deep;

so, here's a verse that's very brief - a sonnet:
just fourteen lines to challenge your attention:
please rest your weary ears, I pray, upon it;
head up; back straight; let go of any tension;

count the passing seconds to that time
-I'll indicate it with a final couplet -
when glorious English in immortal rhyme
blesses you with torpor's blissful duvet...

and after tribute paid to Orpheus' charms,
with stifled yawn, depart to Morpheus' arms...

poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Not all the singers of a thousand years

Not all the singers of a thousand years
Can open English prisons. No. Though hell
Opened for Tracian Orpheus, now the spell
Of song and art is powerless as the tears
That love has shed. You that were full of fears,
And mean self-love, shall live to know full well
That you yourselves, not he, were pitiable
When you met mercy's voice with frowns or jeers.

And did you ask who signed the plea with you?
Fools! It was signed already with the sign
Of great dead men, of God-like Socrates,
Shakespeare and Plato and the Florentine
Who conquered form. And all your pretty crew
Once, and once only, might have stood with these.

poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XLV: Muses, Which Sadly Sit

Muses, which sadly sit about my chair,
Drown'd in the tears extorted by my lines,
With heavy sighs whilst thus I break the air,
Painting my passions in these sad designs,
Since she disdains to bless my happy verse,
The strong-built trophies to her living fame,
Ever henceforth my bosom be your hearse,
Wherein the world shall now entomb her name.
Enclose my music, you poor senseless walls,
Since she is deaf and will not hear my moans,
Soften yourselves with every tear that falls,
Whilst I, like Orpheus, sing to trees and stones,
Which with my plaint seem yet with pity mov'd,
Kinder than she whom I so long have lov'd.

poem by Michael Drayton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Eurydice - To Victor Hugo

Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,
And hardly for the storm and ruin shed
Can even thine eyes be certain of her head
Who never passed out of thy spirit's eyes,
But stood and shone before them in such wise
As when with love her lips and hands were fed,
And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead
Strove to make answer when thou bad'st her rise.

Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feel
The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ
Even when she wakes of hell's most poisonous worm,
Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel.
Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee;
Wait, and see hell yield up Eurydice.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Orpheus

I, that never wrote a verse
I, that live between words and that's require from me explanation.
I, always in love and always so far away.
I, that so difficult to accept for.
I, so hard to be include in....
I am more Amy than Ray....Warning you Mr.
I am resolute, determined, to be lost.
I am lost well...
My feelings, my acts proved to myself.
But remembered Mr.
That´s you who plays harps.
And think that you are Orpheus!
My songs and words could be better than yours!
They slide soft and tender.
Yours, claim to seven strings.
and resolution.
But you can not give what you do not have to give.
But me, Ah! what i give is what i fell
i dont need seven strings still. Mr.

poem by Mirna Morgan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Orpheus I am, Come from the Deeps Below

Orpheus I am, come from the deeps below,
To thee, fond man, the plagues of love to show.
To the fair fields where loves eternal dwell
There's none that come, but first they pass through hell:
Hark, and beware! unless thou hast loved, ever
Beloved again, thou shalt see those joys never.

Hark how they groan that died despairing!
Oh, take heed, then!
Hark how they howl for over-daring!
All these were men.

They that be fools, and die for fame,
They lose their name;
And they that bleed,
Hark how they speed!

Now in cold frosts, now scorching fires
They sit, and curse their lost desires;
Nor shall these souls be free from pains and fears,

[...] Read more

poem by John Fletcher
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21

(Wellington NZ: September 2010)

The final call
for boarding
hand-luggage scanned,
the last, forgotten,
canned drink binned.
I watch him through the glass
walk to the door and hand
over his printed pass.

He waves,
makes the clown's face
that means 'Cheer up,
this time, I won't be gone
for long'. He turns,
then turns back, lifts one hand
to the terrorist-proof glass. We place
palm to palm
remembered skin

[...] Read more

poem by Kathleen Jones
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Sonnets To Orpheus: I

A tree ascended there. Oh pure transendence!
Oh Orpheus sings! Oh tall tree in the ear!
And all things hushed. Yet even in that silence
a new beginning, beckoning, change appeared.

Creatures of stillness crowded from the bright
unbound forest, out of their lairs and nests;
and it was not from any dullness, not
from fear, that they were so quiet in themselves,

but from just listening. Bellow, roar, shriek
seemed small inside their hearts. And where there had been
at most a makeshift hut to receive the music,

a shelter nailed up out of their darkest longing,
with an entryway that shuddered in the wind-
you built a temple deep inside their hearing.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Orpheus in Hell

When he first brought his music into hell
He was absurdly confident. Even over the noise of the
shapeless fires
And the jukebox groaning of the damned
Some of them would hear him. In the upper world
He had forced the stones to listen.
It wasn’t quite the same. And the people he remembered
Weren’t quite the same either. He began looking at faces
Wondering if all of hell were without music.
He tried an old song but pain
Was screaming on the jukebox and the bright fire
Was pelting away the faces and he heard a voice saying,
“Orpheus!”
He was at the entrance again
And a little three-headed dog was barking at him.
Later he would remember all those dead voices
And call them Eurydice.

poem by Jack Spicer
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!