Tag Archives: Lyric Poem

“Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G.” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
   We sailed for the Hesperides,
 The land where golden apples grow;
   But that, ah! that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams
   Have swept us from that land of dreams,
 That land of fiction and of truth,
   The lost Atlantis of our youth!

Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
   The tempest-haunted Orcades,
 Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
   And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?
 
Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
   Here in thy harbors for a while
 We lower our sails; a while we rest
   From the unending, endless quest.

“The Lilly” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
 The humble Sheep a threat’ning horn;
 While the Lilly white shall in Love delight,
 Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.

Quest [Lyric Poem]

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Is it every person's dream
   To be what one is,
   And not what one seems?

Or would one rather be
   The creature of one's dreams --
   Who no one ever sees?

Or should one be the best
   Of real and imagined:
   The host and the guest?

How much of who we are
  Is the views of others
      And how much is ours?
      (And is any of it 
      Written in the stars?)

Picture Horse [Lyric Poem]

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Stacks and stacks
   of wooden plaques:
 Prayers on front,
 Art on the back.

Each a wish
   and a dream?
 More an expression,
   or so it seems.

Whatever prayer
   may be writ,
 There’s always 
   something
 more to it.

A need to show
   one’s unique soul:
 To tell the world
   that one is whole.

A life reduced 
   to a shingle:
 Multitudes,
   to a single.

“Wine Spring” by Pan Lang [w/ Audio]

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I remember viewing the West Lake
 While leaning on a pagoda rail.
 The boats all clustered in threes or twos.
 The islets under deep Autumn blues.

Flute song arose from among the cattails.
 And a line of white birds - overhead - sailed.
 I planned to fix my old fishing pole,
 but clouds on water had my mind & soul.

“Nightfall on the Tisza River” by Géza Gárdonyi [w/ Audio]

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Up comes the Moon on the river,
 Trees and grass quietly quiver.
 Near Szeged a wooded island,
 Od fishing barque, tied to the land.

By the moonlight, on this barque, old,
 Sat a fisherman I am told,
 Played a tune as well as he might,
 Played it well, well into the night.

On the Tisza, velvet darkness,
 Starry sky, the stars numberless,
 Spread a shroud studded with diamonds
 Radiating starry light fronds.

May have been this very spot, hark!
 Right under this rickety barque,
 In the very depths of the deep
 An ancient king's sleeping his sleep.

His coffin is gold and silver,
Of iron is made its cover.
 Up the river is glistening,
 Down the ancient king, listening.

Translation by Frank Veszely in: Hungarian Poetry: One Thousand Years. 2023. Friesen Press: Altona, MB, Canada.

“I’ll be the tree…” by Sándor Petőfi [w/ Audio]

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I'll be the tree, if you'll be its flower;
 I'll be the flower, if you'll be the dew;
 I'll be the dew, if you'll be the sunshine
 That glistens as it unites we two.

If you, My Love, should become the Heavens,
  I'd be reborn as a star on high.
 Even if you turned into Hell, itself,
  I'd be damned, and I'd gladly fry.

The Original Poem in Hungarian:

Fa leszek, ha fának vagy virága.
Ha harmat vagy: én virág leszek.
Harmat leszek, ha te napsugár vagy...
Csak, hogy lényink egyesüljenek.

Ha, leányka, te vagy a mennyország:
Akkor én csillagá változom.
Ha, leányka, te vagy a pokol: (hogy
Egyesüljünk) én elkárhozom.

“The Secret Sits” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]

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We dance round in a ring and suppose,
 But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

“To Helen” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]

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Helen, thy beauty is to me
   Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
   The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
   To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
   Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
 Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
   To the glory that was Greece,
   And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
   How statue-like I see thee stand,
 The agate lamp within thy hand!
   Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
   Are Holy-Land!

“Soft Snow” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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I walked abroad in a snowy day:
 I ask'd the soft snow with me to play:
 She play'd & she melted in all her prime,
 And the winter call'd it a dreadful crime.