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Famous Mandolin Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Clampitt, Amy
...out of a child's,
or a doll's, globular blue. Wore Keds the year round,
tended otherwise to overdress. Owned a mandolin. Once
I got her to take it down from the mantel and plink out,
through a warm fuddle of sauterne, a lot of giddy Italian 
airs from a songbook whose pages had started to crumble.
The canary fluffed and quivered, and the cats, amazed,
 came out from under the couch and stared.

What could the offspring of the schismatic age and a 
relucta...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...Bind me -- I still can sing --
Banish -- my mandolin
Strikes true within --

Slay -- and my Soul shall rise
Chanting to Paradise --
Still thine....Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...good for a burst of speed any time.

I heard Williams and Walker
Before Walker died in the bughouse.

I knew a mandolin player
Working in a barber shop in an Indiana town,
And he thought he had a million dollars.

I knew a hotel girl in Des Moines.
She had eyes; I saw her and said to myself
The sun rises and the sun sets in her eyes.
I was her steady and her heart went pit-a-pat.
We took away the money for a prize waltz at a Brotherhood dance.
She...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...ers, funky trum-
 peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger 
 fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
 harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India, 
 Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman Massa-
 chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty 
 sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American 
 provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicat...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...I

The girl in the room beneath 
Before going to bed 
Strums on a mandolin 
The three simple tunes she knows. 
How inadequate they are to tell how her heart feels! 
When she has finished them several times 
She thrums the strings aimlessly with her finger-nails 
And smiles, and thinks happily of many things.

II

I stood for a long while before the shop window 
Looking at the blue butterflies embroidered on tawny s...Read more of this...



by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...door ?
Look up and see the casement broken in,
The bats and owlets builders in the roof !
My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation ! there 's a voice within
That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ht this little café nigh to Grasse;
With sun and flowers my last few days will pass.

"And music too. I have my mandolin:
Say! Maybe you can strum on your guitar . . .
Come on - we two will make melodious din,
While Madame sings to us behind the bar:
You'll see how sweet Italian folk-songs are."

So he would play and I would thrum the while;
I used to there every lovely day;
His wife would listen with a sunny smile,
And when I left: "Please come again,...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...y door?
Look up and see the casement broken in,
The bats and owlets builders in the roof!
My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.
Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there 's a voice within
That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...m his soup and things;
In Italy and Spain they have no need to heat the house--
'Neath balmy skies the native picks the mandolin and louse.

Now, we've no mouldy catacombs, no feudal castles grim,
No ruined monasteries, no abbeys ghostly dim;
Our ancient history is new, our future's all ahead,
And we've got a tariff bill that's made all Europe sick abed--
But what is best, though short on tombs and academic groves,
We double discount Christendom on sunshine and on stoves....Read more of this...

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