song

I want to know a butcher paints, A baker rhymes for his pursuit, Candlestick-maker much acquaints His soul with song, or, haply mute, Blows out his brains upon the flute.

—Browning, Robert

Death could drop from the dark As easilyas song.

—Rosenberg, Isaac

'A song belongs to no man,'said JoeyThe Lips.'The Lord holds copyright on all songs.' 'Me arse,'said Outspan.

—Doyle, Roddy

Ye holyangels bright, Who wait at God's right hand, Or through the realms of light Flyat your Lord's command, Assist our song, Or else the theme too high doth seem For mortal tongue.

—Gurney,John Hampden

   Wider comprehensions, deeper insights to the dead belong:ö Since for Love thou wakest not, sleeper, yet awake for sake of Song!

—Ferguson, Sir Samuel

And round thee with the breeze of song To stir a little dust of praise.

—Tennyson

An impotent people, Sick with inbreeding. Worrying the carcase of an old song.

—Thomas, R(onald) S(tuart)

O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands: serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.

—Book of Common Prayer

Come, gie's a sang, Montgomery cry'd, And lay your disputes a'aside; What signifies't for folks to chide For what's been done before them? Let Whig and Torya'agree, Whig and Tory,Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory a'agree To drop their whigmigmorum; Let Whig and Torya'agree To spend this night wi'mirth and glee, And cheerfu'sing, alang wi'me, The Reel o' Tullochgorum.

—Skinner,John

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Proven c° al song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

—Keats,John

   Hark, the glad sound! The Saviour comes, The Saviour promised long; Let every heart exult with joy, And every voice be song!

—Doddridge, Philip

Have little care that Life is brief, And less that art is long. Success is in the silences, Though fame is in the song.

—Carman, (William) Bliss

Her funeral sermon (which was long And followed bya sacred song) Mentioned her virtues, it is true, But dwelt upon her vices too.

—Belloc, (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre

For if such holy song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, And speckled vanity Will sicken soon and die.

—Milton,John

For I have a song to sing,O!† It is sung to the moon By a love-lorn loon, Who fled from the mocking throng,O! It's the song of a merryman moping mum, Whose soul was sad and whose glance was glum Who sipped no sup and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye!

—Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)

The Huns†chanted a funeral song to the memory of a hero, glorious inhis life, invincible in his death, the father of his people, the scourge of his enemies, and the terror of the world.

—Gibbon, Edward

Glorious the northern lights astream; Glorious the song, when God's the theme; Glorious the thunder's roar: Glorious hosanna from the den; Glorious the catholic amen; Glorious the martyr's gore.

—Smart, Christopher

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we 98 wept, whenwe remembered Zion.We hanged ourharps uponthewillows inthemidst thereof.For therethey that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one ofthesongs of Zion.Howshall wesing theL'ssong in a strange land?

—Bible (Old Testament)

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

—McCullers, (Lula) Carson ne¤  e Smith

I have made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

Through all Eternity toThee A joyful Song I'll raise, For oh! Eternity's too short To utter all thy Praise.

—Addison,Joseph

And drowned in yonder living blue The lark become a sightless song.

—Tennyson

I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

—Rochdale

The strife is o'er, the battle done; Now is theVictor's triumph won;

—Pott, Frances

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania.

—Parker, Dorothy ne¤  e Rothschild

Silence more musical than any song.

—Rossetti, Christina Georgina

Soy el cantor deAme¤  rica auto¤  ctono y salvaje; mi lira tiene un alma, mi canto un ideal. Mi verso no se mece colgado de un ramaje con un vaive¤  n pausado de hamaca tropical. I am the aboriginal and savage singer of America; my lyre has a soul, my song has an ideal. My poetry does not swing from the branches with the slow movement of a tropical hammock.

—Ch'in Chia   c.150

In anguish we uplift A new unhallowed song: The race is to the swift, The battle to the strong. See Bible101:85.

—Davidson,John

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.

—Armstrong, Louis known as Satchmo

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, do not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song.

—Kingsley, Charles

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise toThee: Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty! God inThree Persons, blesse'  d Trinity.

—Heber, Reginald

What use the green river, the gold place, if time and death pinned human in the pocket of my land not rest from taking underground the green all-willowed and white rose and bean flower and morning-mist picnic of song in pepper-pot breast of thrush?

—Frame,Janet Paterson also known as Jean PatersonFrame

Hey! MrTambourine Man, playa song for me. I'm not sleepyand there is no place I'm going to.

—Dylan, Bob pseudonym of  Robert Allen Zimmerman

The poets of each generation seldom sing a new song. They turn themes men always have loved, and sing them in the mode of their times.

—Day, Clarence Shepard

A rainbowand a cuckoo's song May never come together again; May never come This side the tomb.

—Davies,W(illiam) H(enry)

It ismediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-gunsintherealmoffreesong, saying thusfar shall you go and no further.

—Lowell,James Russell

Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreamsöcan breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Manö My haunt, and the main region of my song.

—Wordsworth,William

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. See Marvell 556:62.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

With fingers wearyand worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags Plying her needle and threadö Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt. And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the'Song of the Shirt'.

—Honorius of Autun

Not philosophy, after all, not humanity, just sheer joyous power of song, is the primal thing in poetry.

—Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT while she whispered a song along the keyboard to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

—O'Hara, Frank

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:ö So this winged hour is dropt to us from above. Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour When twofold silence was the song of love.

—Rossetti, Dante Gabriel

Cantate Domino canticum novum, quia mirabilia fecit. Sing to the Lord a new song, because he has done marvellous things. See Book of Common Prayer143:46.

—Bible (Vulgate)

Sing unto the Lord a new song: sing praises lustily unto him with a good courage.

—Book of Common Prayer

Youcan't writea good song about awhore-houseunless you been in one.

—Guthrie,Woody (Woodrow Wilson)

   The moving accident is not my trade; To freeze the blood I have no ready arts: 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

—Wordsworth,William

   Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise.

—Burns, Robert

The song is ended But the melody lingers on.

—Berlin, Irving originally Israel Baline

The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're moulting They're pretty revolting.

—Nash, (Frederic) Ogden

The song of songs, which is Solomon's.

—Bible (Old Testament)

And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, 'Most musical, most melancholy' bird! A melancholy bird?†his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature!

—Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to towered Camelot.

—Tennyson

Listen kid, take myadviceönever hate a song that has sold half a million copies.

—Berlin, Irving originally Israel Baline

Short swallow-flights of song, that dip In Memoriam A.H.H. Their wings in tears, and skim away.

—Tennyson

As you walk through the storm, Hold your head up high, And don't be afraid of the dark, At the end of the storm, Is a golden sky, And the sweet silver song of the lark, Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain, Though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on, With hope in your hearts, And you'll never walk alone, You'll never walk alone.

—Hammerstein, Oscar, II

Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Yo he conocido cantores que era un gusto el escuchar; mas no quieren opinar y se divierten cantando; pero yo canto opinando, que es mi modo de cantar. I have known singers it was a pleasure to listen to; theyamuse themselves singing and don't care to give opinions; but I sing giving opinions and that's my kind of song.

—Herna¤ n dez,Jose¤

   And this the burthen of his song, For ever used to be, I care for nobody, not I, If no one cares for me.

—Bickerstaffe, Isaac

Peace; come away: the song of woe Is after all an earthly song: Peace; come away: we do him wrong To sing so wildly: let us go.

—Tennyson

   My celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplored, And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse: Since first this subject for heroic song Pleased me long choosing, and beginning late.

—Milton,John

And for ther is so gret diversite In Englissh and in writing of oure tonge, So prey I God that non myswrite the, Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge. And red wherso thow be, or elles songe, That thow be understonde,God I biseche!

—Chaucer, Geoffrey

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!

—Browning, Robert

   But see! theVirgin blessed Hath laid her Babe to rest. Time is our tedious song should here have ending.

—Milton,John

To put it vulgarly, the whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder.

—Lambert, Constant

And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and longö The simple bird that thinks two notes a song.

—Davies,W(illiam) H(enry)

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair, And dream about the great and their pride; They have spoken against you everywhere, But weigh this song with the great and their pride; I made it out of a mouthful of air, Their children's children shall say they have lied.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

—Masefield,John Edward

   My lute, awake! Perform the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And end that I have now begun; For when this song is sung and past, My lute, be still, for I have done.

—Wyatt, SirThomas (the Elder)

   I learned very early in life that: 'Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain't got no friend; without a song the road would never bendöwithout a song'. SoIkeep onsinging.Goodnight. Thank you.

—Presley, Elvis Aaron

   Wer nicht liebt Wein,Weib und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang. Who loves not woman, wine and song Remains a fool his whole life long.

—Luther, Martin

Wrote one songöand in my brain I sing it, Drew one angelöborne, see, on my bosom!

—Browning, Robert