"Music" by Alice Cary

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day January 19, 2020   Music   Alice Cary

There is music, deep and solemn    Floating through the vaulted arch When, in many an angry column,    Clouds take up their stormy march: O'er the ocean billows, heaping     Mountains on the sloping sands, There are ever wildly sweeping      Shapeless and invisible hands. Echoes full of truth and feeling    From the olden bards sublime, Are, like spirits, brightly stealing    Through the broken walls of time. The universe, that glorious palace,     Thrills and trembles as they float, Like the little blossom's chalice      With the humming of the mote. On the air, as birds in meadows—    Sweet embodiments of song— Leave their bright fantastic shadows     Trailing goldenly along. Till, aside our armor laying,     We like prisoners depart, In the soul is music playing      To the beating of the heart.            This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 19, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "Music" was originally published in The Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (T.Y. Crowell & Company, 1903).   Alice Cary was born on April 26, 1820, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Author of Lyra and Other Poems (Redfield, 1852) and others, she coauthored The Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey (T.Y. Crowell & Company, 1903) with her sister. A supporter of the women's suffrage and abolitionist movements, she died on February 12, 1871, in New York.   Poetry by Cary   The Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (T.Y. Crowell & Company, 1903) "Quatrains" by Gwendolyn Bennett "Figure" by Marjorie Welish "Body and Soul II" by Charles Wright January Guest Editor: Meg Day   Thanks to Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A about Day's curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038