Famous Opera House Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Italian Music in Dakota

by Walt Whitman
 THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all, 
Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds, 
In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes, 
Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial, 
(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,
Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here, 
Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,...Read more of this...

Tom Beatty

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney
Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard,
For I tried the rights of property,
Although by lamp-light, for thirty years,
In that poker room in the opera house.
And I say to you that Life's a gambler
Head and shoulders above us all.
No mayor alive can close the house.
And if you lose, you can squeal as you will;
You'll not...Read more of this...

James Garber

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Do you remember, passer-by, the path
I wore across the lot where now stands the opera house,
Hasting with swift feet to work through many years?
Take its meaning to heart:
You too may walk, after the hills at Miller's Ford
Seem no longer far away;
Long after you see them near at hand,
Beyond four miles of meadow;
And after woman's love is silent,
Saying no more:...Read more of this...

Harry Wilmans

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I was just turned twenty-one,
And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent,
Made a speech in Bindle's Opera House.
"The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,
"Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs
Or the greatest power in Europe."
And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he waved
As he spoke.
And I went to the war in spite...Read more of this...

Flossie Cabanis

by Edgar Lee Masters
 From Bindle's opera house in the village
To Broadway is a great step.
But I tried to take it, my ambition fired
When sixteen years of age,
Seeing "East Lynne" played here in the village
By Ralph Barrett, the coming
Romantic actor, who enthralled my soul.
True, I trailed back home, a broken failure,
When Ralph disappeared in New York,
Leaving me alone in the city --
But life...Read more of this...

An Opera House

by Amy Lowell
 Within the gold square of the proscenium arch,
A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds,
Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind.
Gold carving edges the balconies,
Rims the boxes,
Runs up and down fluted pillars.
Little knife-stabs of gold
Shine out whenever a box door is opened.
Gold clusters
Flash in soft explosions
On the blue darkness,
Suck back to a point,
And disappear.
Hoops of...Read more of this...

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