The Chained Muse

The Editor

An Original Musical Setting of "Poems Unwritten"

Sometimes, when the light and the mists of the day Settle holy and soft on the edge of the night, When the sights and the sounds of the...

The Editor

Brahms' Advice for Composers - Part I

The Chained Muse is proud to present the first part in a lecture series by music scholar Fred Haight. In this installment, there will be...

By Paul Gallagher

The Violin Soldier

It was a story somehow true – it likely happened so, It's strange – but there is much that's strange in human powers to know. A young...

Musical Setting

Ständchen - Set by Franz Schubert

My songs travel through the cool night, Searching for you. Find me in the tranquil grove, love— I'll wait for you. The gentle fronds of...

By Joseph S. Salemi

Plain English

The poetry scene, like every human activity, has its cant and its catchwords. As Robert Louis Stevenson said in his Virginibus...

By Daniel Leach

Stones

These stones that like huge sculpted figures lie Amid the trunks of moss and fern-clad trees, Eons of creatures have seen born and die...

By David B. Gosselin

Chinese Mountain Man VI: The Gorge

The travelers had reached a gorge Whose darkness they would have to breach. The mountaintops lay far ahead— “Such darkness has a lot to...

Original Translation

Song of the Spirits on the Water by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

The soul of mankind Is like water: From Heaven coming, To Heaven rising, Again descending— As it must—Earthward, Ever circling. It...

By Gleb Zavlanov

'Cause You'd Be Here

The butterfly, the sea anemone, And snowflake, though possessive of the true Design of grace and perfect symmetry, Seem crude and ugly...

By Bruce Meyer

Telling the Bees About Love

Her head was golden as honey in the morning light, soft-haired with a halo shimmering as if the dawn of a better day. Her breath reminded...

By Troy Camplin

Birthing Pains and Other Poetry

An Invitation The gods have fled? They haven't been invited! A century has passed opposing beauty And now we stand depressed, dismayed,...

Original Recitation

Sappho's "Hymn to Aphrodite"

Immortal Aphrodite, throned in splendor! Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, enchantress, and beguiler! I implore you, dread mistress,...