Music, and Other Poems — Edition Insights

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In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Van Dyke, Henry, 1852-1933 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2002 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: American poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 13,425

Reading time 59 min

Text sections 3

The catalog record for Music, and Other Poems — Edition Insights provides practical reading context through 13,425 words, 59 min estimated reading time, and 3 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 28.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “American poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #3525

Henry Van Dyke's 1904 collection blends formal odes, sonnets, and lyrics with narrative poems, revealing a poet who shifts between mythic invocation, moral allegory, and intimate address. The excerpts show careful attention to metrical variety, from the elaborate stanza of 'Music' to the plain verse of 'The Vain King.'

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg3525

Read the Text

Produced by Mardi Desjardins

MUSIC AND OTHER POEMS

To my son Tertius this book is dedicated

Transcribed from the book published October, 1904

by Charles Scribner's Sons.

ODES Music Peace Victor Hugo God of the Open Air

SONNETS Work Life Love The Child in the Garden Love's Reason Portrait and Reality The Wind of Sorrow Patria

LEGENDS A Legend of Service The Vain King

LYRICS A Mile with Me Spring in the South Love's Nearness Two Schools A Prayer for a Mother's Birthday Indian Summer One World Hide and Seek Dulcis Memoria Autumn in the Garden The Message Light Between the Trees Reliance

GREETINGS AND INSCRIPTIONS Katrina's Sun-dial To James Whitcomb Riley A Health to Mark Twain A Rondeau of College Rhymes The Mocking-bird The Empty Quatrain Inscriptions for a Friend's House The Statue of Sherman by St. Gaudens The Sun-dial at Wells College

Daughter of Psyche, pledge of that last night When, pierced with pain and bitter-sweet delight, She knew her Love and saw her Lord depart, Then breathed her wonder and her woe forlorn Into a single cry, and thou wast born? Thou flower of rapture and thou fruit of grief; Invisible enchantress of the heart; Mistress of charms that bring relief To sorrow, and to joy impart A heavenly tone that keeps it undefiled,-- Thou art the child Of Amor, and by right divine A throne of love is thine, Thou flower-folded, golden-girdled, star-crowned Queen, Whose bridal beauty mortal eyes have never seen!

Thou art the Angel of the pool that sleeps, While peace and joy lie hidden in its deeps, Waiting thy touch to make the waters roll In healing murmurs round the weary soul. Ah, when wilt thou draw near, Thou messenger of mercy robed in song? My lonely heart has listened for thee long; And now I seem to hear Across the crowded market-place of life, Thy measured foot-fall, ringing light and clear Above the unmeaning noises and the unruly strife; In quiet cadence, sweet and slow, Serenely pacing to and fro, Thy far-off steps are magical and dear. Ah, turn this way, come close and speak to me! From this dull bed of languor set my spirit free, And bid me rise, and let me walk awhile with thee

Where wilt thou lead me first? In what still region Of thy domain, Whose provinces are legion, Wilt thou restore me to myself again, And quench my heart's long thirst? I pray thee lay thy golden girdle down, And put away thy starry crown: For one dear restful hour Assume a state more mild. Clad only in thy blossom-broidered gown That breathes familiar scent of many a flower, Take the low path that leads thro' pastures green; And though thou art a Queen, Be Rosamund awhile, and in thy bower, By tranquil love and simple joy beguiled, Sing to my soul, as mother to her child.

O lead me by the hand, And let my heart have rest, And bring me back to childhood land, To find again the long-lost band Of playmates blithe and blest.

Some quaint, old-fashioned air, That all the children knew, Shall run before us everywhere, Like a little maid with flying hair, To guide the merry crew.

Along the garden ways We chase the light-foot tune, And in and out the flowery maze, With eager haste and fond delays, In pleasant paths of June.

For us the fields are new, For us the woods are rife With fairy secrets, deep and true, And heaven is but a tent of blue Above the game of life.

The world is far away: The fever and the fret, And all that makes the heart grow gray, Is out of sight and far away, Dear Music, while I hear thee play That olden, golden roundelay, "Remember and forget!"

Forget, forget! The tide of life is turning; The waves of light ebb slowly down the west: Along the edge of dark some stars are burning To guide thy spirit safely to an isle of rest. A little rocking on the tranquil deep Of song, to soothe thy yearning, A little slumber and a little sleep, And so, forget, forget!

Forget, forget,-- The day was long in pleasure; Its echoes die away across the hill; Now let thy heart beat time to their slow measure That swells, and sinks, and faints, and falls, till all is still. Then, like a weary child that loves to keep Locked in its arms some treasure, Thy soul in calm content shall fall asleep, And so forget, forget.

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The opening ode of Music, and Other Poems immediately establishes a distinctive voice: the poet addresses Music as a personified, mythic figure—'Daughter of Psyche,' 'flower of rapture,' 'fruit of grief'—and builds a complex stanza around her imagined attributes. Van Dyke's diction here is deliberately ornate, with compound epithets ('flower-folded, golden-girdled, star-crowned Queen') that signal a formal, almost ceremonial tone. Yet the same poem later shifts to a simpler register, asking Music to 'take the low path that leads thro' pastures green' and to 'Sing to my soul, as mother to her child.' This contrast between high invocation and domestic intimacy recurs throughout the collection.

Mythic Invocation and Intimate Address

In the ode 'Music,' Van Dyke alternates between two modes of address. The first is elaborate and mythological: Music is 'the Angel of the pool that sleeps,' a 'messenger of mercy robed in song.' The second is personal and almost pleading: 'Ah, turn this way, come close and speak to me!' This dual approach is not merely decorative—it structures the poem's emotional arc. The speaker moves from distant reverence to a desire for nearness, from 'thy starry crown' to 'thy blossom-broidered gown.' Van Dyke's word choices reinforce this shift: abstract nouns like 'rapture' and 'grief' give way to concrete images of 'pastures green' and a 'bower.' The effect is a poem that enacts the very comfort it seeks from music.

Moral Allegory in 'The Vain King'

The narrative poem 'The Vain King' adopts a markedly different style: plain, almost prosaic couplets that tell a cautionary tale. Van Dyke uses direct characterization—'Proud was the King: yet not with such a heart / As fits a man to play a royal part'—and builds a portrait of vanity through specific actions: the King rides in tournaments, plays the lyre, hunts, and paints, always seeking applause. The poem's moral framework is explicit: 'the strong trod down the weak; the helpless poor / Groaned under burdens grievous to endure.' Van Dyke's diction here is less ornate but more pointed, with phrases like 'played at glory's idle game' and 'victor in every sport' that accumulate to condemn the King's self-absorption. The allegory is straightforward, but the verse maintains a steady, unadorned rhythm that suits the narrative.

Structural Variety Across the Collection

The table of contents reveals Van Dyke's deliberate range of forms: odes in elaborate stanzas, sonnets with conventional rhyme schemes, lyrics with shorter lines, and narrative poems in couplets. The ode 'Music' uses a complex stanza pattern—lines of varying length, irregular rhyme—while 'The Vain King' sticks to iambic pentameter couplets. This formal variety is not arbitrary; it corresponds to subject. The odes address abstract or spiritual themes with heightened language; the sonnets and lyrics treat love, work, and nature in more compressed forms; the narratives unfold moral lessons in steady verse. Van Dyke's authorial choices thus extend beyond diction to the very shape of the poem on the page.

Recurring Motifs of Light and Sound

Across the excerpts, certain sensory details recur. In 'Music,' the speaker hears 'thy measured foot-fall, ringing light and clear' and 'thy far-off steps are magical and dear.' In 'The Vain King,' the courtiers' praise is described as 'loud thunder of applause.' Van Dyke frequently pairs sound with light imagery: the Queen is 'star-crowned,' the King's crown has a 'giant ruby,' and the fisher's silver fish lie 'on the green.' These motifs are not heavy-handed but create a consistent sensory texture. The poet seems to think in terms of brightness and resonance, whether he is invoking a divine Muse or describing a tyrant's baubles. This consistency suggests a deliberate authorial hand, linking the collection's diverse poems through shared vocabulary.

Readers approaching Music, and Other Poems will find a poet who moves easily between high myth and plain speech, between elaborate stanzas and straightforward couplets. Van Dyke's authorial choices—his diction, his formal variety, his recurring motifs—reward attention to the craft of each poem. The collection does not demand to be read straight through; its sections (Odes, Sonnets, Legends, Lyrics) offer natural stopping points. Pay particular attention to how Van Dyke modulates his voice from poem to poem: the same poet who calls Music a 'star-crowned Queen' can also write a king who 'played at glory's idle game.'

That gray afternoon, I kept returning to Van Dyke’s quieter verses, the way he let a hymn fade into plain speech. By dusk, the book lay open on the armrest, and I found myself reaching for something gentler, almost without thinking—Christmas Roses — Reading Notes. It felt less like a decision, more like turning the page to a snowfall that had been waiting outside all along.