I don't generally love the 20th Century poets. They lived through such hard times. All that beatnik-ing in the 50s and cultural chaos in the 60s, but I got out a book of modern verse for us to take a look at over the next few weeks. Here's one by Edna St Vincent Millay that reminded me of my own love of George Gershwin.
On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven
Edna St Vincent Millay
Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Reject me not into the world again.
With you alone is excellence and peace,
Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.
Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd,
With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale,
The spiteful and the stingy and the rude
Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale.
This moment is the best the world can give:
The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem.
Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live,
Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them,
A city spell-bound under the aging sun.
Music my rampart, and my only one.
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