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Best Famous Cyclic Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Cyclic poems. This is a select list of the best famous Cyclic poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Cyclic poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of cyclic poems.

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Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

Song of the Redwood-Tree

 1
A CALIFORNIA song! 
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing; 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.
Farewell, my brethren, Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters; My time has ended, my term has come.
2 Along the northern coast, Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves, In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country, With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse, With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong arms, Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes—there in the Redwood forest dense, I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.
The choppers heard not—the camp shanties echoed not; The quick-ear’d teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not, As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain; But in my soul I plainly heard.
Murmuring out of its myriad leaves, Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high, Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs—out of its foot-thick bark, That chant of the seasons and time—chant, not of the past only, but the future.
3 You untold life of me, And all you venerable and innocent joys, Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, ’mid rain, and many a summer sun, And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds; O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul’s strong joys, unreck’d by man; (For know I bear the soul befitting me—I too have consciousness, identity, And all the rocks and mountains have—and all the earth;) Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine, Our time, our term has come.
Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers, We who have grandly fill’d our time; With Nature’s calm content, and tacit, huge delight, We welcome what we wrought for through the past, And leave the field for them.
For them predicted long, For a superber Race—they too to grandly fill their time, For them we abdicate—in them ourselves, ye forest kings! In them these skies and airs—these mountain peaks—Shasta—Nevadas, These huge, precipitous cliffs—this amplitude—these valleys grand—Yosemite, To be in them absorb’d, assimilated.
4 Then to a loftier strain, Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant, As if the heirs, the Deities of the West, Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.
Not wan from Asia’s fetishes, Nor red from Europe’s old dynastic slaughter-house, (Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and scaffolds every where,) But come from Nature’s long and harmless throes—peacefully builded thence, These virgin lands—Lands of the Western Shore, To the new Culminating Man—to you, the Empire New, You, promis’d long, we pledge, we dedicate.
You occult, deep volitions, You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois’d on yourself—giving, not taking law, You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and love, and aught that comes from life and love, You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age upon age, working in Death the same as Life,) You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space, You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal’d, but ever alert, You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be unconscious of yourselves, Unswerv’d by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface; You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes, literatures, Here build your homes for good—establish here—These areas entire, Lands of the Western Shore, We pledge, we dedicate to you.
For man of you—your characteristic Race, Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow—here tower, proportionate to Nature, Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck’d by wall or roof, Here laugh with storm or sun—here joy—here patiently inure, Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others’ formulas heed)—here fill his time, To duly fall, to aid, unreck’d at last, To disappear, to serve.
Thus, on the northern coast, In the echo of teamsters’ calls, and the clinking chains, and the music of choppers’ axes, The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan, Such words combined from the Redwood-tree—as of wood-spirits’ voices ecstatic, ancient and rustling, The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing, All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving, From the Cascade range to the Wasatch—or Idaho far, or Utah, To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding, The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity—the settlements, features all, In the Mendocino woods I caught.
5 The flashing and golden pageant of California! The sudden and gorgeous drama—the sunny and ample lands; The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south; Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air—valleys and mountain cliffs; The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow—the silent, cyclic chemistry; The slow and steady ages plodding—the unoccupied surface ripening—the rich ores forming beneath; At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession, A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where; Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the whole world, To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises of the Pacific; Populous cities—the latest inventions—the steamers on the rivers—the railroads—with many a thrifty farm, with machinery, And wool, and wheat, and the grape—and diggings of yellow gold.
6 But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore! (These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,) I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years, till now deferr’d, Promis’d, to be fulfill’d, our common kind, the Race.
The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature, In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees imperial, In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital air.
Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared, I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal, Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the past so grand, To build a grander future.


Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate all this work of Tim

 Contemplate all this work of Time,
The giant labouring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature's earth and lime;
But trust that those we call the dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends.
They say, The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the last arose the man; Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, The herald of a higher race, And of himself in higher place, If so he type this work of time Within himself, from more to more; Or, crown'd with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore, But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter'd with the shocks of doom To shape and use.
Arise and fly The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die.
Written by George William Russell | Create an image from this poem

The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty

 I WOULD I could weave in
 The colour, the wonder,
 The song I conceive in
 My heart while I ponder,


 And show how it came like
 The magi of old
 Whose chant was a flame like
 The dawn’s voice of gold;


 Whose dreams followed near them
 A murmur of birds,
 And ear still could hear them
 Unchanted in words.
In words I can only Reveal thee my heart, Oh, Light of the Lonely, The shining impart.
Between the twilight and the dark The lights danced up before my eyes: I found no sleep or peace or rest, But dreams of stars and burning skies.
I knew the faces of the day— Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair, I knew you not nor yet your home, The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where? I passed a dream of gloomy ways Where ne’er did human feet intrude: It was the border of a wood, A dreadful forest solitude.
With wondrous red and fairy gold The clouds were woven o’er the ocean; The stars in fiery æther swung And danced with gay and glittering motion.
A fire leaped up within my heart When first I saw the old sea shine; As if a god were there revealed I bowed my head in awe divine; And long beside the dim sea marge I mused until the gathering haze Veiled from me where the silver tide Ran in its thousand shadowy ways.
The black night dropped upon the sea: The silent awe came down with it: I saw fantastic vapours flee As o’er the darkness of the pit.
When lo! from out the furthest night A speck of rose and silver light Above a boat shaped wondrously Came floating swiftly o’er the sea.
It was no human will that bore The boat so fleetly to the shore Without a sail spread or an oar.
The Pilot stood erect thereon And lifted up his ancient face, Ancient with glad eternal youth Like one who was of starry race.
His face was rich with dusky bloom; His eyes a bronze and golden fire; His hair in streams of silver light Hung flamelike on his strange attire, Which, starred with many a mystic sign, Fell as o’er sunlit ruby glowing: His light flew o’er the waves afar In ruddy ripples on each bar Along the spiral pathways flowing.
It was a crystal boat that chased The light along the watery waste, Till caught amid the surges hoary The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.
Oh, never such a glory was: The pale moon shot it through and through With light of lilac, white and blue: And there mid many a fairy hue, Of pearl and pink and amethyst, Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams And wove around a wonder-mist.
The Pilot lifted beckoning hands; Silent I went with deep amaze To know why came this Beam of Light So far along the ocean ways Out of the vast and shadowy night.
“Make haste, make haste!” he cried.
“Away! A thousand ages now are gone.
Yet thou and I ere night be sped Will reck no more of eve or dawn.
” Swift as the swallow to its nest I leaped: my body dropt right down: A silver star I rose and flew.
A flame burned golden at his breast: I entered at the heart and knew My Brother-Self who roams the deep, Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.
The ruby vesture wrapped us round As twain in one; we left behind The league-long murmur of the shore And fleeted swifter than the wind.
The distance rushed upon the bark: We neared unto the mystic isles: The heavenly city we could mark, Its mountain light, its jewel dark, Its pinnacles and starry piles.
The glory brightened: “Do not fear; For we are real, though what seems So proudly built above the waves Is but one mighty spirit’s dreams.
“Our Father’s house hath many fanes; Yet enter not and worship not, For thought but follows after thought Till last consuming self it wanes.
“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings Its glamour o’er the light of day: A music in the sunlight sings To call the dreamy hearts away Their mighty hopes to ease awhile: We will not go the way of them: The chant makes drowsy those who seek The sceptre and the diadem.
“The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws Its magic round us all the night; What things the heart would be, it sees And chases them in endless flight.
Or coiled in phantom visions there It builds within the halls of fire; Its dreams flash like the peacock’s wing And glow with sun-hues of desire.
We will not follow in their ways Nor heed the lure of fay or elf, But in the ending of our days Rest in the high Ancestral Self.
” The boat of crystal touched the shore, Then melted flamelike from our eyes, As in the twilight drops the sun Withdrawing rays of paradise.
We hurried under archéd aisles That far above in heaven withdrawn With cloudy pillars stormed the night, Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.
I would have lingered then—but he: “Oh, let us haste: the dream grows dim, Another night, another day, A thousand years will part from him, Who is that Ancient One divine From whom our phantom being born Rolled with the wonder-light around Had started in the fairy morn.
“A thousand of our years to him Are but the night, are but the day, Wherein he rests from cyclic toil Or chants the song of starry sway.
He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount Fills all our heart with dreams of light: He wakes to ancient spheres, and we Through iron ages mourn the night.
We will not wander in the night But in a darkness more divine Shall join the Father Light of Lights And rule the long-descended line.
” Even then a vasty twilight fell: Wavered in air the shadowy towers: The city like a gleaming shell, Its azures, opals, silvers, blues, Were melting in more dreamy hues.
We feared the falling of the night And hurried more our headlong flight.
In one long line the towers went by; The trembling radiance dropt behind, As when some swift and radiant one Flits by and flings upon the wind The rainbow tresses of the sun.
And then they vanished from our gaze Faded the magic lights, and all Into a starry radiance fell As waters in their fountain fall.
We knew our time-long journey o’er And knew the end of all desire, And saw within the emerald glow Our Father like the white sun-fire.
We could not say if age or youth Were on his face: we only burned To pass the gateways of the day, The exiles to the heart returned.
He rose to greet us and his breath, The tempest music of the spheres, Dissolved the memory of earth, The cyclic labour and our tears.
In him our dream of sorrow passed, The spirit once again was free And heard the song the morning stars Chant in eternal revelry.
This was the close of human story; We saw the deep unmeasured shine, And sank within the mystic glory They called of old the Dark Divine.
Well it is gone now, The dream that I chanted: On this side the dawn now I sit fate-implanted.
But though of my dreaming The dawn has bereft me, It all was not seeming For something has left me.
I feel in some other World far from this cold light The Dream Bird, my brother, Is rayed with the gold light.
I too in the Father Would hide me, and so, Bright Bird, to foregather With thee now I go.
Written by George William Russell | Create an image from this poem

The Heroes

 BY many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:
But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead.
The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feet Walked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street.
Where was the beauty that the Lord gave men when first they towered in pride? But one came by me at whose word the bitter condemnation died.
His brows were crowned with thorns of light: his eyes were bright as one who sees The starry palaces shine o’er the sparkle of the heavenly seas.
“Is it not beautiful?” he cried.
“Our Faery Land of Hearts’ Desire Is mingled through the mire and mist, yet stainless keeps its lovely fire.
The pearly phantoms with blown hair are dancing where the drunkards reel: The cloud frail daffodils shine out where filth is splashing from the heel.
O sweet, and sweet, and sweet to hear, the melodies in rivers run: The rapture of their crowded notes is yet the myriad voice of One.
Those who are lost and fallen here, to-night in sleep shall pass the gate, Put on the purples of the King, and know them masters of their fate.
Each wrinkled hag shall reassume the plumes and hues of paradise: Each brawler be enthroned in calm among the Children of the Wise.
Yet in the council with the gods no one will falter to pursue His lofty purpose, but come forth the cyclic labours to renew; And take the burden of the world and veil his beauty in a shroud, And wrestle with the chaos till the anarch to the light be bowed.
We cannot for forgetfulness forego the reverence due to them Who wear at times they do not guess the sceptre and the diadem.
As bright a crown as this was theirs when first they from the Father sped; Yet look with deeper eyes and still the ancient beauty is not dead.
” He mingled with the multitude.
I saw their brows were crowned and bright, A light around the shadowy heads, a shadow round the head of light.
Written by Elizabeth Smart | Create an image from this poem

O Poor People

 Let us invoke a healthy heart-breaking
Towards the horrible world:
Let us say 0 poor people
How can they help being so absurd,
Misguided, abused, misled?

With unsifted saving graces jostling about 
On a mucky medley of needs,
Like love-lit ****, 
Year after cyclic year
The unidentifiable flying god is missed.
Emotions sit in their heads disguised as judges, Or are twisted to look like mathematical formulae, And only a scarce god-given scientist notices His trembling lip melting the heart of the rat.
Whoever gave us the idea somebody loved us? Far in our wounded depths faint memories cry, A vision flickers below subliminally But immanence looms unbearably: TURN IT OFF! they hiss.