Poems About Music
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Music, Musicians, and Musical Instruments in Poetry
Welcome, friends.
Here's a compilation of poems that are about music in some way; they may feature a musician or a musical instrument or piece. Whenever I come across a good poem about music I'll add it here. As expected from good poetry, many of these poems have themes that extend beyond music to love, loss, joy, frustration, and longing.
Furthermore at the bottom of the page I recommend excellent anthologies of poems about music along with other gifts that might be appreciated by people who love both poetry and music. I hope you enjoy.
(If you're curious, the image on the left shows a piece for voice and flute called "The Solitary Lover." The source is The National Library of Scotland.)
Here's a compilation of poems that are about music in some way; they may feature a musician or a musical instrument or piece. Whenever I come across a good poem about music I'll add it here. As expected from good poetry, many of these poems have themes that extend beyond music to love, loss, joy, frustration, and longing.
Furthermore at the bottom of the page I recommend excellent anthologies of poems about music along with other gifts that might be appreciated by people who love both poetry and music. I hope you enjoy.
(If you're curious, the image on the left shows a piece for voice and flute called "The Solitary Lover." The source is The National Library of Scotland.)
A note about excerpts
If a poem doesn't appear to be in the public domain or if it's quite long, I'll provide an excerpt of it with a link to a site where it's been made available with permission and where you can read it in full.
"I Am in Need of Music" by Elizabeth Bishop
A sonnet
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
(Click here to read the full poem)
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
(Click here to read the full poem)
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Piano Poems
"Piano" by D.H. Lawrence
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
"Fauré Second Piano Quartet" by James Schuyler
And the piano comes in,
like an extra heartbeat, dangerous
and lovely. Slower now, less like
the leaves, more like the rain which
almost isn't rain, more like thawed-
out hail.
(Click here to read the full poem)
like an extra heartbeat, dangerous
and lovely. Slower now, less like
the leaves, more like the rain which
almost isn't rain, more like thawed-
out hail.
(Click here to read the full poem)
"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
(Click here to read "The Weary Blues" in full)
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
(Click here to read "The Weary Blues" in full)
Violin Poems
"Kreisler" by Carl Sandburg
Sell me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood.
Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead where men kiss sisters they love.
Sell me dried wood that has ached with passion clutching the knees and arms of a storm.
Sell me horsehair and rosin that has sucked at the breasts of the morning sun for milk.
Sell me something crushed in the heartsblood of pain readier than ever for one more song.
Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead where men kiss sisters they love.
Sell me dried wood that has ached with passion clutching the knees and arms of a storm.
Sell me horsehair and rosin that has sucked at the breasts of the morning sun for milk.
Sell me something crushed in the heartsblood of pain readier than ever for one more song.
"Stravinsky's Three Pieces 'Grotesques', for String Quartet - Second Movement" by Amy Lowell
Pale violin music whiffs across the moon,
A pale smoke of violin music blows over the moon,
Cherry petals fall and flutter,
And the white Pierrot,
Wreathed in the smoke of the violins,
Splashed with cherry petals falling, falling,
Claws a grave for himself in the fresh earth
With his finger-nails.
A pale smoke of violin music blows over the moon,
Cherry petals fall and flutter,
And the white Pierrot,
Wreathed in the smoke of the violins,
Splashed with cherry petals falling, falling,
Claws a grave for himself in the fresh earth
With his finger-nails.
"Il Maestro del Violino" by Emily Fragos
Those of us still pretty enough
to leave give concerts
in the open air and return to tell
of shrieking gulls and
large faces and the warm breeze
that blows across our
bare legs and arms as thin as reeds.
(Click here to read "Il Maestro del Violino" in full)
to leave give concerts
in the open air and return to tell
of shrieking gulls and
large faces and the warm breeze
that blows across our
bare legs and arms as thin as reeds.
(Click here to read "Il Maestro del Violino" in full)
Guitar Poems
from "The Man with The Blue Guitar" by Wallace Stevens
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."
(Click here to read more excerpts of this poem, which is not available in full on the web)
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."
(Click here to read more excerpts of this poem, which is not available in full on the web)
"The Black Guitar" by Paul Henry
a man's tears are worth nothing,
but a child's name in the dust, or in the sand
of a darkening beach, that's a life's work.
I touched two strings, to hear how much
two lives can slip out of tune
(Click here to read "The Black Guitar" in full)
but a child's name in the dust, or in the sand
of a darkening beach, that's a life's work.
I touched two strings, to hear how much
two lives can slip out of tune
(Click here to read "The Black Guitar" in full)
Flute Poems
"Flute Player" by Farzaneh Khojandi
Where is the real bazaar?
The flute-player tells me:
come with your ears used to insults,
and listen to the light recite a prayer to the dark.
(Click here to read "Flute Player" in full)
The flute-player tells me:
come with your ears used to insults,
and listen to the light recite a prayer to the dark.
(Click here to read "Flute Player" in full)
"The Nomad Flute" by W.S. Merwin
You that sang to me once sing to me now
let me hear your long lifted note
survive with me
the star is fading
I can think farther than that but I forget
do you hear me
(Click here to read "The Nomad Flute" in full)
let me hear your long lifted note
survive with me
the star is fading
I can think farther than that but I forget
do you hear me
(Click here to read "The Nomad Flute" in full)
Poems about Singing
"Everyone Sang" by Siegfried Sassoon
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
(Click here to read "Everyone Sang" in full)
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
(Click here to read "Everyone Sang" in full)
Composer Poems
"Ludwig Van Beethoven's Return to Vienna" by Rita Dove
At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I'd missed -
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd's
home-toward-evening song - rushed in, and I
would rage again.
(Click here to read the full poem)
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I'd missed -
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd's
home-toward-evening song - rushed in, and I
would rage again.
(Click here to read the full poem)
Jukebox and Radio Poems
"The Waltz We Were Born For" by Walt McDonald
I know who I'll find waiting at the gate,
the same woman faithful to my arms
as she was those nights in Austin
when the world seemed like a jukebox,
our boots able to dance forever,
our pockets full of coins.
(Click here to read the full poem)
the same woman faithful to my arms
as she was those nights in Austin
when the world seemed like a jukebox,
our boots able to dance forever,
our pockets full of coins.
(Click here to read the full poem)
"KFAC" by Charles Bukowski
he must be very old now,
that fellow,
and every time I hear his voice
again
I pour a tall one
to salute him
happy that he's made it
for one more
night
along with me.
(Click here to read "KFAC" in full)
that fellow,
and every time I hear his voice
again
I pour a tall one
to salute him
happy that he's made it
for one more
night
along with me.
(Click here to read "KFAC" in full)
Books of Poems About Music
These books are excellent. Music's Spell and A Music Lover's Poetry Anthology are collections with a variety of well-selected poems about music. Sonata Mulaticca is an imaginative musical biography in poetry.
1
Music's Spell: Poems About Music and Musicians (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)
Music may be the universal language that needs no words-the "language where all language ends," as Rilke put it-but that has not stopped poets from ancient times to the present from trying to represent it in verse.
Here are Rumi and Shakespeare, Elizabeth Bishop and Billy Collins; the wild pipes of William Blake, the weeping guitars of Federico García Lorca, and the jazz rhythms of Langston Hughes; Wallace Stevens on Mozart and Thom Gunn on Elvis-the range of poets and of...0 points
2
The Music Lover's Poetry Anthology
"Here, in a precedent-setting collection, are the master singers."-Carol Muske-Dukes
Poetry and music share countless virtues, affecting us in many of the same ways. We respond to their lyricism, move to their rhythms, and anticipate their refrains.
The Music Lover's Poetry Anthology celebrates this timeless connection with more than 150 extraordinary poems written with music as their muse...0 points
3
Sonata Mulattica: Poems by Rita Dove
In a book-length lyric narrative inspired by history and imagination, a much celebrated poet re-creates the life of a nineteenth-century virtuoso violinist.
The son of a white woman and an "African Prince," George Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860) travels to Vienna to meet "bad-boy" genius Ludwig van Beethoven. The great composer's subsequent sonata is originally dedicated to the young mulatto, but George, exuberant with acclaim, offends Beethoven over a woman. From this...0 points
More gifts for people who love poetry and music
These gifts or collections might not necessarily feature poems about music, but they link the two together.
A Music Lover's Magnetic Poetry Kit
Poems accompanied by music
Your thoughts on Poems about Music
If you'd like to you can suggest your own
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Lemming13 Feb 18, 2012 @ 8:01 am | delete
- A lovely lens; my favourite poem about music is Siegfried Sassoon's poem from World War I, 'Everyone Sang'.
Ev'ryone suddenly burst out singing,
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white orchards
and dark green fields
On, on, and out of sight.
Ev'ryone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears
And horror drifted away.
O but ev'ryone was a bird
And the song was wordless,
The singing will never be done.
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silloftheworld
Feb 18, 2012 @ 8:56 pm | delete
- Thank you! And I've added your suggestion to the page; it's a beautiful, stirring poem.
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by silloftheworld
A writer who loves books, movies, music, science and traveling. I write mainly short fiction and maintain a blog: The Sill of the World. more »
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