Famous Organs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los (from

by William Blake
 The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: 
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:
And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the...Read more of this...

Deaths And Entrances

by Dylan Thomas
 On almost the incendiary eve
 Of several near deaths,
When one at the great least of your best loved
 And always known must leave
Lions and fires of his flying breath,
 Of your immortal friends
Who'd raise the organs of the counted dust
 To shoot and sing your praise,
One who called deepest down shall hold his peace
 That cannot sink or cease
...Read more of this...

The Ol' Tunes

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
You kin talk about yer anthems
An' yer arias an' sich,
An' yer modern choir-singin'
That you think so awful rich;
But you orter heerd us youngsters
In the times now far away,
A-singin' o' the ol' tunes
In the ol'-fashioned way.
There was some of us sung treble
An' a few of us growled bass,
An' the tide o' song flowed smoothly
With its 'comp'niment o' grace;
There was spirit in...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...

At Carnoy

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Down in the hollow there’s the whole Brigade 
Camped in four groups: through twilight falling slow 
I hear a sound of mouth-organs, ill-played, 
And murmur of voices, gruff, confused, and low. 
Crouched among thistle-tufts I’ve watched the glow
Of a blurred orange sunset flare and fade; 
And I’m content. To-morrow we must go 
To take some curs?d Wood ... O...Read more of this...

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

by Matthew Arnold
 Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side. 

The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the...Read more of this...

Musics Empire

by Andrew Marvell
 First was the world as one great cymbal made, 
Where jarring winds to infant Nature played. 
All music was a solitary sound, 
To hollow rocks and murm'ring fountains bound.

Jubal first made the wilder notes agree; 
And Jubal tuned music's Jubilee; 
He call'd the echoes from their sullen cell, 
And built the organ's city where they dwell.

Each sought a consort...Read more of this...

Work and Play

by Ted Hughes
 The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,
A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,
A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.
 But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust
 In shimmering exhaust
 Searching to slake
 Its fever in ocean
 Will play and be idle or else it will bust. 

The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,
She flings...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent
That my humble weeping change into blossoms.
Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering,...Read more of this...

Carol of Words

by Walt Whitman
 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in...Read more of this...

Kosmos

by Walt Whitman
 WHO includes diversity, and is Nature, 
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the
 great
 charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also, 
Who has not look’d forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held
 audience with messengers for nothing; 
Who contains believers and disbelievers—Who is...Read more of this...

Coffee

by Richard Brautigan
 Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it...Read more of this...

Poem 12

by Edmund Spenser
 OPen the temple gates vnto my loue,
Open them wide that she may enter in,
And all the postes adorne as doth behoue,
And all the pillours deck with girlands trim,
For to recyue this Saynt with honour dew,
That commeth in to you,
With trembling steps and humble reuerence,
She commeth in, before th'almighties vew,
Of her ye virgins learne obedience,
When so ye come into those...Read more of this...

The Transparent Man

by Anthony Hecht
 I'm mighty glad to see you, Mrs. Curtis,
And thank you very kindly for this visit--
Especially now when all the others here
Are having holiday visitors, and I feel
A little conspicuous and in the way.
It's mainly because of Thanksgiving. All these mothers
And wives and husbands gaze at me soulfully
And feel they should break up their box of chocolates
For a donation, or...Read more of this...

Sky Diving

by Nikki Giovanni
Sky DivingI hang on the edge   of this universe   singing off-key   talking too loud   embracing myself   to cushion the fall    I shall tumble   into deep space   never in this form   or with this feeling   to return to earth     It is not tragic   ...Read more of this...

A Retrospect Of Humidity

by Les Murray
 All the air conditioners now slacken
their hummed carrier wave. Once again
we've served our three months with remissions
in the steam and dry iron of this seaboard.
In jellied glare, through the nettle-rash season
we've watched the sky's fermenting laundry
portend downpours. Some came, and steamed away,
and we were clutched back into the rancid
saline midnights of orifice weather,
to damp grittiness and wiping off the...Read more of this...

Alexanders Feast; Or The Power Of Music

by John Dryden
 'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son— 
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne;
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais by his side
Sate like a blooming eastern bride
In flower of youth and beauty's pride:— 
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None...Read more of this...

Milton: The Sky is an Immortal Tent Built by the Sons of Los

by William Blake
 The sky is an immortal tent built by the Sons of Los: 
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe:
And on its verge the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the...Read more of this...

To Sir Robert Wroth

by Ben Jonson
  III. — TO SIR ROBERT WROTH.          Art ta'en with neither's vice nor sport : That at great times, art no ambitious guest    Of sheriff 's dinner, or mayor's feast. Nor com'st to view the better cloth of state,    The richer hangings, or crown-plate ; Nor throng'st (when masquing is) to have a sight   There wasted, some not...Read more of this...

Miracles

by Walt Whitman
 WHY! who makes much of a miracle? 
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, 
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, 
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, 
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods, 
Or talk...Read more of this...

The Whistle Of Sandy McGraw

by Robert William Service
 You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine,
 Your harps and your tabors and cymbals and a',
But here in the trenches jist gie me for mine
 The wee penny whistle o' Sandy McGraw.
Oh, it's: "Sandy, ma lad, will you lilt us a tune?"
 And Sandy is willin' and trillin' like mad;
Sae silvery sweet that we a' throng...Read more of this...

For You

by Carl Sandburg
 THE PEACE of great doors be for you.
Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs.
Wait for the great hinges.

The peace of great churches be for you,
Where the players of loft pipe organs
Practice old lovely fragments, alone.

The peace of great books be for you,
Stains of pressed clover leaves on pages,
Bleach of the light of years held in leather.

The peace of...Read more of this...

Written On Sunday Morning

by Robert Southey
 Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
I to the Woodlands wend, and there
In lovely Nature see the GOD OF LOVE.
The swelling organ's peal
Wakes not my soul to zeal,
Like the wild music of the wind-swept grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Rouse not such ardor in my breast,
As where the noon-tide beam
Flash'd from the broken stream,
Quick vibrates on the...Read more of this...

Song For Saint Cecilias Day 1687

by John Dryden
 From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
 This universal frame began:
 When nature underneath a heap
 Of jarring atoms lay
 And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
 Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
 And Music's power obey.
From Harmony, from heavenly harmony
 This universal frame began:
...Read more of this...

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