Famous Chords Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Chords poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous chords poems. These examples illustrate what a famous chords poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Song at Sunset

by Walt Whitman
 SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me! 
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past! 
Inflating my throat—you, divine average! 
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. 

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, 
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; 
Corroborating forever the triumph of things. 

Illustrious every one! 
Illustrious what...Read more of this...

Or from that Sea of Time

by Walt Whitman
 1
OR, from that Sea of Time, 
Spray, blown by the wind—a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells; 
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless! 
Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held, 
Murmurs and echoes still bring up—Eternity’s music, faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim—strains for the Soul of the Prairies, 
Whisper’d reverberations—chords...Read more of this...

The German Parnassus

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 in the wares before you spread,
Types of all things may be read.

'NEATH the shadow

Of these bushes,
On the meadow

Where the cooling water gushes.
Phoebus gave me, when a boy,
All life's fullness to enjoy.
So, in silence, as the God
Bade them with his sov'reign nod,
Sacred Muses train'd my days
To his praise.--
With the bright and silv'ry flood
Of Parnassus stirr'd my blood,
And the seal so...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 04: Illicit

by Conrad Aiken
 Of what she said to me that night—no matter.
The strange thing came next day.
My brain was full of music—something she played me—;
I couldn't remember it all, but phrases of it
Wreathed and wreathed among faint memories,
Seeking for something, trying to tell me something,
Urging to restlessness: verging on grief.
I tried to play the tune, from memory,—
But memory failed: the chords and...Read more of this...

Dream Song 68: I heard could be a Hey there from the wing

by John Berryman
 I heard, could be, a Hey there from the wing,
and I went on: Miss Bessie soundin good
that one, that night of all,
I feelin fari myself, taxes & things
seem to be back in line, like everybody should
and nobody in the snow on call

so, as I say, the house is given hell
to Yellow Dog, I blowin like it too
and Bessie always...Read more of this...

The Minstrel Boy

by Thomas Moore
 The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone, 
In the ranks of death you'll find him; 
His father's sword he has girded on, 
And his wild harp slung behind him. 
"Land of song!" said the warrior-bard, 
"Though all the world betrays thee, 
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, 
One faithful harp shall praise thee!" 

The Minstrel fell! --...Read more of this...

Minstrels

by William Wordsworth
The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped...Read more of this...

Chords

by Carl Sandburg
 IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes … horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea.

In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders … and a speaking, brooding black velvet, relapsing to the voiceless … battering Russian marches on a piano …...Read more of this...

Proud Music of The Storm

by Walt Whitman
 1
PROUD music of the storm! 
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies! 
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains! 
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras! 
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations; 
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses! 
You formless, free, religious dances! you...Read more of this...

A Tree Telling of Orpheus

by Denise Levertov
 White dawn. Stillness.When the rippling began
I took it for sea-wind, coming to our valley with rumors of salt, of treeless horizons. But the white fog
didn't stir; the leaves of my brothers remained outstretched, unmoving.
Yet the rippling drew nearer – and then my own outermost branches began to tingle, almost as if
fire had been lit below them, too close, and...Read more of this...

La Solitude de St. Amant

by Katherine Philips
 1

O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
O Heavens! what content is mine,
To see those trees which have appear'd
From the nativity of Time,
And which hall ages have rever'd,
To look to-day as fresh and green,
As when their beauties first were seen!


2

A cheerful wind does court them so,
And with such...Read more of this...

467. Inscription to Miss Graham of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 HERE, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives,
 In sacred strains and tuneful numbers joined,
Accept the gift; though humble he who gives,
 Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.


So may no ruffian-feeling in my breast,
 Discordant, jar thy bosom-chords among;
But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
 Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song,


Or Pity’s notes, in luxury of...Read more of this...

Sing Sweet Harp

by Thomas Moore
 Sing, sweet Harp, oh sing to me 
Some song of ancient days, 
Whose sounds, in this sad memory, 
Long-buried dreams shall raise; -- 
Some lay that tells of vanish'd fame, 
Whose light once round us shone, 
Of noble pride, now turn'd to shame, 
And hopes for ever gone. 
Sing, sad Harp, thus sing to me; 
Alike our doom is...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song

by Conrad Aiken
 No, I shall not say why it is that I love you—
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,—your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall...Read more of this...

To Walt Whitman In America

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,
And blown as a tree through and through
With the winds of the keen mountain-passes,
And tender...Read more of this...

The Rat-catcher

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I AM the bard known far and wide,
The travell'd rat-catcher beside;
A man most needful to this town,
So glorious through its old renown.
However many rats I see,
How many weasels there may be,
I cleanse the place from ev'ry one,
All needs must helter-skelter run.

Sometimes the bard so full of cheer
As a child-catcher will appear,
Who e'en the wildest captive brings,
Whene'er his golden tales...Read more of this...

southampton water

by Rg Gregory
 song of sea-leaves in an orchestra of foam
branches of violins sprayed across the mind
what is magnetic in a wave breaking white 
drawing the chords of evening to a single sound

i would liken your hair to a slow movement
of seagulls in the wind catching my eye
by sheer virtue of design - i could nest there
as naturally as the anemones nest...Read more of this...

The Silent Melody

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 "BRING me my broken harp," he said;
"We both are wrecks,-- but as ye will,--
Though all its ringing tones have fled,
Their echoes linger round it still;
It had some golden strings, I know,
But that was long-- how long!-- ago.

"I cannot see its tarnished gold,
I cannot hear its vanished tone,
Scarce can my trembling fingers hold
The pillared frame so long their own;
We both...Read more of this...

Music: An Ode

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 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,
Lived not surely till music spake, 
and the...Read more of this...

Merlin I

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of...Read more of this...

The Power Of Song

by Friedrich von Schiller
 The foaming stream from out the rock
With thunder roar begins to rush,--
The oak falls prostrate at the shock,
And mountain-wrecks attend the gush.
With rapturous awe, in wonder lost,
The wanderer hearkens to the sound;
From cliff to cliff he hears it tossed,
Yet knows not whither it is bound:
'Tis thus that song's bright waters pour
From sources never known before.

In union with those dreaded...Read more of this...

Machines

by Michael Donaghy
 Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should...Read more of this...

353. Poem on Sensibility

by Robert Burns
 SENSIBILITY, how charming,
 Dearest Nancy, thou canst tell;
But distress, with horrors arming,
 Thou alas! hast known too well!


Fairest flower, behold the lily
 Blooming in the sunny ray:
Let the blast sweep o’er the valley,
 See it prostrate in the clay.


Hear the wood lark charm the forest,
 Telling o’er his little joys;
But alas! a prey the surest
 To each pirate of...Read more of this...

Listening

by Amy Lowell
 'T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit's harmony, which clear and strong
Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth...Read more of this...

The Gardener XLV: To the Guests

by Rabindranath Tagore
 To the guests that must go bid
God's speed and brush away all traces
of their steps.
Take to your bosom with a smile
what is easy and simple and near.
To-day is the festival of phantoms
that know not when they die.
Let your laughter be but a meaning-
less mirth like twinkles of light on
the ripples.
Let your life lightly dance on the
edges of Time like...Read more of this...

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