Music and Poetry
(A ‘Neapolitan’ Poem)
Rich streams of suasive sound arouse in open hearts
Emotions which can overmaster reasoned thoughts.
Skilled music stirs our minds with flowing tides
Which wash our senses’ and our souls’ insides.
Rare poetry inspires our minds to reach
For excellences nothing else can teach.
As clinging folds of cadence wrap our sense,
Like Summer pines, in pleasant redolence,
Associations of the deepest kind
In myriad diversities we find;
Even wire-throated violins may sing
Their hair-wrung songs and rosined passions wring;
Whilst powerful, apt words intoxicate
Our raptured thoughts and our emotions sate,
As crafted orchestrations adumbrate
Visions of angel-harmonies more great.
Effulgent magnaminities of sound
Induce inceptive dreams of hopes unbound;
Whilst fluent notes, dissolving as they rise,
Dispel tight tensions and disharmonies.
The glory of one perfect phrase, word, tone
May be compared to any treasure known.
Evocative intricacies of sound ignite
Profound emotions that can set our souls alight.
(Note: A ‘Neapolitan’ is a poem in which alternate lines, couplets or other groups of lines, refer to contrasted things — in this case poetry and music — and thus combines two or more separate poems in one. The name is derived from the cake, or iced-cream, in which layers of different colours, tastes or other ingredients are superimposed or mixed. J.A.B).
