Saturday, November 24, 2012


It is proportion that beautifies everything, this whole universe consists of it, and music is measured by it.

-- Orlando Gibbons
(in The Music-Lover's Birthday Book,
edited by Alden Rockwell Murphy)

Saturday, November 17, 2012


Philosophers have said that we love music
because it resembles the sphere-sounds of union.

We have been part of a harmony before,
so these moments of treble and bass
keep our remembering fresh.

Hearing the sound, we gather strength.
Love kindles with melody.  Music feeds a lover
composure, and provides form for the imagination.
Music breathes on personal fire and makes it keener.

-- Rumi
(in A Year with Rumi,
translated by Coleman Barks)

Saturday, November 10, 2012


Send us someone who can sing music for the soul,
though we know such longing cannot rise from a lute
or a tambourine, not from the sun,
or Venus, or any star.

-- Rumi
(in Rumi:  The Big Red Book,
translated by Coleman Barks)

Saturday, November 3, 2012


But loves plays and is the music played.
Let that musician finish this poem.

-- Rumi
(in Rumi:  The Big Red Book,
translated by Coleman Barks)