Poem: “On a Picture to Music” by Natalie Clifford Barney

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American Literature – American Poetry – Natalie Clifford Barney – Poems from Natalie Clifford Barney
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On a Picture to Music

Music, language of the mortal soul.
The face of twilight,
The mouth of bitterness made lyrical,
Eyes closed on poignant joys that might have been!
A profile turned to life, and yet beyond …
Reborn, transfigured; penetrating sense
To gather an acute expressiveness
Vibrant within itself: all our lost lives!
—We must play gently to the living dead—
Fingers outstretched, by that responsive lid
Where Angel harps lie buried at full length,
Yet still in touch and resonant—Arise
To laying on of hands—
Invisible, a phantom of pure sound
Voices the spirit sitting there, awakes
The sighing, and the soaring and the beat
(O dispossessed and silenced King: my heart!)
Until we too are echos of that tide,
Where winds and waves become articulate,
Our being tossed so high, beyond itself,
Winged by the elements!
Our human weight of woe no longer felt
Until we meet
—By some familiar fall of minor chords—
The inner God of Sorrow face to face.

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Loves Comrades > > >

American Literature – American Poetry –Natalie Clifford Barney – Poems from Natalie Clifford Barney

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On a Picture to Music

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