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Famous Senses Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Senses poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous senses poems. These examples illustrate what a famous senses poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Poe, Edgar Allan
..., and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
But O that light!- I slumber'd- Death, the while,
Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single silken hair
Awoke that slept- or knew that he was there.

"The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon;
More beauty clung around her column'd wall
Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
And when old Time my wing did disenthral
Thence sprang I- as the eagle from hi...Read more of this...



by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...d and understand the vision
Made by impassion’d body,—vision of thee!
But music mixt with music are, in love,
Bodily senses; and as flame hath light,
Spirit this nature hath imagined round it,
No way concealed therein, when love comes near,
Nor in the perfect wedding of desires
Suffering any hindrance.

She

Ah, but now,
Now am I given love’s eternal secret!
Yea, thou and I who speak, are but the joy
Of our for ever mated spirits; but now
The wisdom of my g...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ape,
Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces around her,
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses.
Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people,--
"Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier season
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our exile,
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the churchyard."
Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by the sea-side,
Having the glare of ...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...s reported on the radio 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where the faculties of the skull no longer admit 
 the worms of the senses 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where you drink the tea of the breasts of the 
 spinsters of Utica 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the 
 harpies of the Bronx 
I'm with you in Rockland 
 where you scream in a straightjacket that you're 
 losing the game of the actual pingpong of the 
 abyss 
I'm with you in Rockland 
...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...oments, suddenly, 
We look up to the great wide sky, 
Inquiring wherefore we were born… 
For earnest or for jest? 

The senses folding thick and dark 
About the stifled soul within, 
We guess diviner things beyond, 
And yearn to them with yearning fond; 
We strike out blindly to a mark 
Believed in, but not seen. 

We vibrate to the pant and thrill 
Wherewith Eternity has curled 
In serpent-twine about God’s seat; 
While, freshening upward to His feet, 
In gradual growth ...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...oamed sands.
"O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion-stung,
Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies!
Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears,
My voice is not a bellows unto ire.
Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof
How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop:
And in the proof much comfort will I give,
If ye will take that comfort in its truth.
We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou
Hast sifted well th...Read more of this...

by Teasdale, Sara
...ight, 
Yet I am I, who long to be 
Lost as a light is lost in light. 

Oh plunge me deep in love - put out 
My senses, leave me deaf and blind, 
Swept by the tempest of your love, 
A taper in a rushing wind. ...Read more of this...

by Lewis, C S
...curves, 
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.

Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery 
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see; 
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity 
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be. 
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior, 
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares 
With living men some secrets in a privacy 
Forever ours, not theirs....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...that serve 
Reason as chief; among these Fancy next 
Her office holds; of all external things 
Which the five watchful senses represent, 
She forms imaginations, aery shapes, 
Which Reason, joining or disjoining, frames 
All what we affirm or what deny, and call 
Our knowledge or opinion; then retires 
Into her private cell, when nature rests. 
Oft in her absence mimick Fancy wakes 
To imitate her; but, misjoining shapes, 
Wild work produces oft, and most in dreams; 
Ill...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ts, sight, hearing, touch, my
 phrenology, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like; 
The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and flesh; 
My body, done with materials—my sight, done with my material eyes;
Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material eyes which finally see, 
Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates. 

11
O the farmer’s joys! 
Ohioan’s, Illinoisian’s, Wisconsi...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ly, nor still insist
To afflict thy self in vain: though sight be lost,
Life yet hath many solaces, enjoy'd
Where other senses want not their delights
At home in leisure and domestic ease,
Exempt from many a care and chance to which
Eye-sight exposes daily men abroad.
I to the Lords will intercede, not doubting 
Thir favourable ear, that I may fetch thee
From forth this loathsom prison-house, to abide
With me, where my redoubl'd love and care
With nursing diligence, to me...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...ts;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect; 
Illustrious the attribute of speech—the senses—the body; 
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the
 western
 sky! 
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last. 

Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals, 
In the annual return of the seasons, 
In the hilarity of youth, 
In the strength and flush of manhood, 
In the grande...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...he bare waist, 
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields,
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away, 
They bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me; 
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger; 
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while, 
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.

The sentries desert every other part of me; 
They have left me helpless to a r...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...y, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,--though silent, rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great, through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long
Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,--
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...s pity fashion'd Eve. 
And out of tune with all the joy around
I laid me down beneath a flowering tree,
And o'er my senses crept a sleep profound;
In which it seem'd that thou wert given to me,
Rending my body, where with hurried sound
I feel my heart beat, when I think of thee. 

60
Love that I know, love I am wise in, love,
My strength, my pride, my grace, my skill untaught,
My faith here upon earth, my hope above,
My contemplation and perpetual thought:
The pleasur...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...k strikes three—a dismal knell!   Then up along the town she hies,  No wonder if her senses fail,  This piteous news so much it shock'd her,  She quite forgot to send the Doctor,  To comfort poor old Susan Gale.   And now she's high upon the down,  And she can see a mile of road,  "Oh cruel! I'm almost three-score;  Such night as this was...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...hand, each brow as gay,
     As if they parted yesterday.
     And doubt distracts him at the view,—
     O were his senses false or true?
     Dreamed he of death or broken vow,
     Or is it all a vision now?
     XXXIV.

     At length, with Ellen in a grove
     He seemed to walk and speak of love;
     She listened with a blush and sigh,
     His suit was warm, his hopes were high.
     He sought her yielded hand to clasp,
     And a cold gauntlet met his gr...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...to these are True

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age
Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is
the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
Energy is Eternal Delight
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PLATE 5

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough
to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ow-brow'd Night,
And Contemplation, her sedate Compeer;
Let me shake off th'intrusive Cares of Day,
And lay the medling Senses all aside.

AND now, ye lying Vanities of Life!
You ever-tempting, ever-cheating Train!
Where are you now? and what is your Amount?
Vexation, Disappointment, and Remorse. 
Sad, sickening, Thought! and yet, deluded Man,
A Scene of wild, disjointed, Visions past,
And broken Slumbers, rises, still resolv'd,
With new-flush'd Hopes, to run your gid...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...  That in her womb the infant wrought  About its mother's heart, and brought  Her senses back again:  And when at last her time drew near,  Her looks were calm, her senses clear. XV.   No more I know, I wish I did,  And I would tell it all to you;  For what became of this poor child  There's none that ever knew:  And if a ...Read more of this...

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