The Chained Muse

Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Nativity

Forget your Christmas cards and little crèche the cutesy donkey, sheep and shepherd boys. Put away the twinkle lights and all that trash;...

By Adam Sedia

Beyond the Lines: “Mont Blanc” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

In his essay “A Defence of Poetry,” Shelley described a poem as “the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.” His sweeping...

Translation

"Light and Warmth" by Friedrich Schiller

The better soul enters the world With faith placed in the Good within, He yearns to see the same unfurled Without, and vanquish every...

By Rowland Hughes

A Valley Funeral

Men, uncomfortably well dressed in funeral black, collars frayed, starched white, old shoes thick with polish. A woman pours tea into...

By Dean Z. Douthat

To a Doric Column

Dam of Nereids, I cannot see your face, Poseidon's love gives your girls their haven. You tower high, your queenly will and grace Hold up...

By Eleanor Aspen

Sestina of Seasons

Looking upwards at the clear summer sky I see all the trees have green leaves The same color as the grass on the ground. The sun shines...

By Ryan Hamadeh

Art, Aesthetics and Architecture

The expression of human society exhibits a dynamic and enterprising appeal. Its physical surroundings are made of still and upright forms...

By John Martin

Nudism in England

The sun's a prude: it turns its eye away at night, and only looks on us by day to see if we are doing what we should. Yet how it blushes...

By Ryan P. Tunison

Some Lines After Keats' Lamia & Other Poems

After Some Lines in Keats’ Lamia How poets must be mad to trace the line Of woman, whomsoever holds their liking, To faeries’ influence,...

Translation

Beautiful New Rose by Guido Cavalcanti

Beautiful new rose, Precious renewer, By field and river I’ll happily sing Your every blessing—to the blooming verdure. Your sacred...

By Terry Norton

Cassandra

Both beauty and intelligence were mine. But to what end? Of all the nineteen who Sprang from my mother’s fecund thighs, of daughters I...

By Daniel Leach

An Evening in the "Simultaneity of Eternity"—with Shakespeare, Keats, and William Warfield

The following is a workshop and dialogue on the art of classical poetic recitation. We at The Chained Muse believe that a revival of...