Famous Melody Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Thekla - A Spirit Voice

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Whither was it that my spirit wended
When from thee my fleeting shadow moved?
Is not now each earthly conflict ended?
Say,--have I not lived,--have I not loved?

Art thou for the nightingales inquiring
Who entranced thee in the early year
With their melody so joy-inspiring?
Only whilst they loved they lingered here.

Is the lost one lost to me forever?
Trust me, with him joyfully I stray
There,...Read more of this...

Title divine -- is mine!

by Emily Dickinson
 Title divine -- is mine!
The Wife -- without the Sign!
Acute Degree -- conferred on me --
Empress of Calvary!
Royal -- all but the Crown!
Betrothed -- without the swoon
God sends us Women --
When you -- hold -- Garnet to Garnet --
Gold -- to Gold --
Born -- Bridalled -- Shrouded --
In a Day --
Tri Victory
"My Husband" -- women say --
Stroking the Melody...Read more of this...

O Word I Love to Sing

by Claude McKay
 O word I love to sing! thou art too tender 
For all the passions agitating me; 
For all my bitterness thou art too tender, 
I cannot pour my red soul into thee. 

O haunting melody! thou art too slender, 
Too fragile like a globe of crystal glass; 
For all my stormy thoughts thou art too slender, 
The burden from...Read more of this...

Peter Quince At The Clavier

by Wallace Stevens
I 

1 Just as my fingers on these keys 
2 Make music, so the self-same sounds 
3 On my spirit make a music, too. 
4 Music is feeling, then, not sound; 
5 And thus it is that what I feel, 
6 Here in this room, desiring you, 

7 Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, 
8 Is music. It is like the...Read more of this...

Bright Moments

by Dejan Stojanovic
There can be no forced inspiration, 
But there can be mergers with the world

There can be a flowing of feelings
Quiet, yet overwhelming

Flying outside to unite
Flying inside to find

The melody of the moment
When the yellow corona appears on the horizon

And blue light appears over the mountain
And the world becomes mellow

Hospitable and generous, 
And you fly into the heart of the mountain

To...Read more of this...

Rinaldo to Laura Maria

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU! whose sublime poetic art 
Can pierce the pulses of the heart, 
Can force the treasur'd tear to flow 
In prodigality of woe; 
Or lure each jocund bliss to birth 
Amid the sportive bow'rs of mirth: 
LAURA DIVINE! I call thee now 
To yonder promontory's brow 
That props the skies; while at its feet 
With fruitless ire the billows...Read more of this...

A Plantation Melody

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
De trees is bendin' in de sto'm,
De rain done hid de mountain's fo'm,
I 's 'lone an' in distress.
But listen, dah 's a voice I hyeah,
A-sayin' to me, loud an' cleah,
"Lay low in de wildaness."
De lightnin' flash, de bough sway low,
My po' sick hea't is trimblin' so,
It hu'ts my very breas'.
But him dat give de lightnin' powah
Jes' bids me in de...Read more of this...

The Bells

by Edgar Allan Poe
 I

Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and...Read more of this...

Written On A Blank Space At The End Of Chaucers Tale Of The Flowre And The Lefe

by John Keats
 This pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines so freshly interlace,
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops
Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And, by the wandering melody, may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! what a power has white Simplicity!
What mighty power...Read more of this...

On Angels

by Czeslaw Milosz
 All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe you,
messengers.

There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems.

Shorts is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at...Read more of this...

The Life of Love XVI

by Kahlil Gibran
 Spring


Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls, 
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its 
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys. 
Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the 
Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw 
Inspiration high above the cool green plains. 


Dawn of Spring has unfolded her winter-kept...Read more of this...

Dulcis Memoria

by Henry Van Dyke
 Long, long ago I heard a little song,
(Ah, was it long ago, or yesterday?)
So lowly, slowly wound the tune along,
That far into my heart it found the way:
A melody consoling and endearing;
And still, in silent hours, I'm often hearing
The small, sweet song that does not die away.

Long, long ago I saw a little flower,--
(Ah, was it long ago, or...Read more of this...

Evening Song Of Senlin

by Conrad Aiken
 from Senlin: A Biography 


It is moonlight. Alone in the silence 
I ascend my stairs once more, 
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, 
Crash on a white sand shore. 
It is moonlight. The garden is silent. 
I stand in my room alone. 
Across my wall, from the far-off moon, 
A rain of fire is thrown . ....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...

Mystery

by George William Russell
 WHY does this sudden passion smite me?
I stretch my hands, all blind to see:
I need the lamp of the world to light me,
 Lead me and set me free.


Something a moment seemed to stoop from
The night with cool, cool breath on my face:
Or did the hair of the twilight droop from
 Its silent wandering ways?


About me in the thick...Read more of this...

Claribel: A Melody

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.

At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee hummeth
About the moss'd headstone:
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling...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 Weary Blues

by Langston Hughes
 Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
 I heard a ***** play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
 He did a lazy sway . . .
 He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each...Read more of this...

Ode to the Nightingale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SWEET BIRD OF SORROW! ­why complain 
In such soft melody of Song, 
That ECHO, am'rous of thy Strain, 
The ling'ring cadence doth prolong? 
Ah! tell me, tell me, why, 
Thy dulcet Notes ascend the sky. 
Or on the filmy vapours glide 
Along the misty moutain's side? 
And wherefore dost Thou love to dwell, 
In the dark wood and moss-grown...Read more of this...

Just Before April Came

by Carl Sandburg
 THE SNOW piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.

Frogs plutter and squdge—and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers past a blue pool; they celebrate an old festival.
A...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 05: Melody In A Restaurant

by Conrad Aiken
 The cigarette-smoke loops and slides above us,
Dipping and swirling as the waiter passes;
You strike a match and stare upon the flame.
The tiny fire leaps in your eyes a moment,
And dwindles away as silently as it came.

This melody, you say, has certain voices—
They rise like nereids from a river, singing,
Lift white faces, and dive to darkness again.
Wherever you go you...Read more of this...

In the Greenest of our Valleys

by Edgar Allan Poe
 I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace --reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This --all this --was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the...Read more of this...

In Lovers Lane

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 I know a place for loitering feet
Deep in the valley where the breeze
Makes melody in lichened boughs,
And murmurs low love-litanies. 

There slender harebells nod and dream,
And pale wild roses offer up
The fragrance of their golden hearts,
As from some incense-brimméd cup. 

It holds the sunshine sifted down
Softly through many a beechen screen,
Save where, by deeper woods embraced,
Cool shadows linger, dim...Read more of this...

A Lost Dream

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.
For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.
I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk...Read more of this...

I have heard the sunset song of the birches

by Stephen Crane
 "I have heard the sunset song of the birches,
A white melody in the silence,
I have seen a quarrel of the pines.
At nightfall
The little grasses have rushed by me
With the wind men.
These things have I lived," quoth the maniac,
"Possessing only eyes and ears.
But you --
You don green spectacles before you look at roses."...Read more of this...

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