Famous Counterpoint Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Master Hugues Of Saxe-Gotha

...ruth's golden o'er us although we refuse it---
Nature, thro' cobwebs we string her.

XXVIII.

Hugues! I advise _Me Pn_
(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)
Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena!
Say the word, straight I unstop the full-organ,
Blare out the _mode Palestrina._

XXIX.

While in the roof, if I'm right there,
... Lo you, the wick in the socket!
Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there!
Down it dips, gone like a rocket.
What, you want, do you, to come ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert


Pink Champagne (for Digby Fairweather)

...yer’s fingers
dancing round the tune;
a lover’s touch
caressing melody from bass;
and sax, deep throated tenor
shouting counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive ricochets.

Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and shimmying
like Sister Kate.

The cornet-master
blows
an emptiness away....Read more of this...
by Green, Adrian

String Bass

...Some like to dominate,
others caress
a voluptuous rhythm
on pliant strings.

This pulse drives life
through wanton counterpoint,
the heart and harmony
of things....Read more of this...
by Green, Adrian

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms

...He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room below—his floor her ceiling—
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,

His watch—the same he has heard these cycles of ages—
Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.
The clo...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Tenor Man

...en in the middle eight
he draws, exhales, and catches breath,
stoops forward to the mouthpiece

and blows,
  a tumbling counterpoint,
scales soaring from his horn.

The melody flows

until the break,
and then he shoulders arms,
a truce between the music and his ailing lungs.

Between choruses he sits apart
to light another cigarette,
a sideman counting out the bars
until he rises for the coda -
this Lazarus of swing....Read more of this...
by Green, Adrian


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