I am in need of music

I was searching for something else, and ran across this sonnet by a 17-year-old Elizabeth Bishop, which is really *good* angsty teenage poetry!


I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

She's still developing her voice -- it reads like it could be by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and also the second stanza is clearly referencing Endymion, but it is a very BIG MOOD poem.