10 Best Famous Daylights Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Daylights poems. This is a select list of the best famous Daylights poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Daylights poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of daylights poems.

• All Famous Daylights Poems

 Over the terminal,
 the arms and chest
 of the god

brightened by snow.
 Formerly mercury,
 formerly silver,

surface yellowed
 by atmospheric sulphurs
 acid exhalations,

and now the shining
 thing's descendant.
 Obscure passages,

dim apertures:
 these clouded windows
 show a few faces

or some empty car's
 filmstrip of lit flames
 --remember them

from school,
 how they were supposed
 to teach us something?--

waxy light hurrying
 inches away from the phantom
 smudge of us, vague

in spattered glass. Then
 daylight's soft charcoal
 lusters stone walls

and we ascend to what
 passes for brightness,
 this February,

scumbled sky
 above graduated zones
 of decline:

dead rowhouses,
 charred windows'
 wet frames

around empty space,
 a few chipboard polemics
 nailed over the gaps,

speeches too long
 and obsessive for anyone
 on this train to read,

sealing the hollowed interiors
 --some of them grand once,
 you can tell by

the fillips of decoration,
 stone leaves, the frieze
 of sunflowers.

Desolate fields--open spaces,
 in a city where you
 can hardly turn around!--

seem to center
 on little flames,
 something always burning

in a barrel or can
 As if to represent
 inextinguishable,

dogged persistence?
 Though whether what burns
 is will or rage or

harsh amalgam
 I couldn't say.
 But I can tell you this,

what I've seen that
 won my allegiance most,
 though it was also

the hallmark of our ruin,
 and quick as anything
 seen in transit:

where Manhattan ends
 in the narrowing
 geographical equivalent

of a sigh (asphalt,
 arc of trestle, dull-witted
 industrial tanks

and scaffoldings, ancient now,
 visited by no one)
 on the concrete

embankment just
 above the river,
 a sudden density

and concentration
 of trash, so much
 I couldn't pick out

any one thing
 from our rising track
 as it arced onto the bridge

over the fantastic
 accumulation of jetsam
 and contraband

strewn under
 the uncompromising
 vault of heaven.

An unbelievable mess,
 so heaped and scattered
 it seemed the core

of chaos itself--
 but no, the junk was arranged
 in rough aisles,

someone's intimate
 clutter and collection,
 no walls but still

a kind of apartment
 and a fire ribboned out
 of a ruined stove,

and white plates
 were laid out
 on the table beside it.

White china! Something
 was moving, and
 --you understand

it takes longer to tell this
 than to see it, only
 a train window's worth

of actuality--
 I knew what moved
 was an arm,

the arm of the (man
 or woman?) in the center
 of that hapless welter

in layer upon layer
 of coats blankets scarves
 until the form

constituted one more
 gray unreadable;
 whoever

was lifting a hammer,
 and bringing it down
 again, tapping at

what work
 I couldn't say;
 whoever, under

the great exhausted dome
 of winter light,
 which the steep

and steel surfaces of the city
 made both more soft
 and more severe,

was making something,
 or repairing,
 was in the act

(sheer stubborn nerve of it)
 of putting together.
 Who knows what.

(And there was more,
 more I'd take all spring
 to see. I'd pick my seat

and set my paper down
 to study him again
 --he, yes, some days not

at home though usually
 in, huddled
 by the smoldering,

and when my eye wandered
 --five-second increments
 of apprehension--I saw

he had a dog!
 Who lay half in
 half out his doghouse

in the rain, golden head
 resting on splayed paws.
 He had a ruined car,

and heaps of clothes,
 and things to read--
 was no emblem,

in other words,
 but a citizen,
 who'd built a citizen's

household, even
 on the literal edge,
 while I watched

from my quick,
 high place, hurtling
 over his encampment

by the waters of Babylon.)
 Then we were gone,
 in the heat and draft

of our silver, rattling
 over the river
 into the South Bronx,

against whose greasy
 skyline rose that neoned
 billboard for cigarettes

which hostages
 my attention, always,
 as it is meant to do,

its motto ruby
 in the dark morning:
 ALIVE WITH PLEASURE.

 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart, feelings on your sleeve,

But feelings are all a master poet needs:

You broke all the taboos, whores and fags and booze,

While I sighed over books and began to snooze

Until your voice broke through the haze

Of a quarter century’s sleep. “Wake up you git

And bloody write!” I did and never stopped

And like you told the truth about how bad poetry

Rots the soul and slapped a New Gen face or two

And kicked some arses in painful places,

And so like you, got omitted from the posh anthologies

Where Penguin and Picador fill the pages

With the boring poetasters you went for in your rages,

Ex-friends like Harrison who missed you out.

You never could see the envy in their enmity.

Longley was the worst, a hypocrite to boot,

All you said about him never did come out;

I’ve tried myself to nail others of that ilk

Hither and thither they slide and slither

And crawl out of the muck white as brides’

Fat with OBE’s, sinecures and sighs

And Collected Poems no one buys.



Yet ‘Mainstrem’, your last but one collection,

I had to wait months for, the last borrower

Kept it for two years and likely I’ll do the same

Your poetry’s like no other, no one could tame

Your roaring fury or your searing pain.



You bared your soul in a most unfashionable way

But everything in me says your verse will stay,

Your love for your fourth and final wife,

The last chance marriage that went right

The children you loved so much but knew

You wouldn’t live to see grown up, so caught

Their growing pains and joys with a painter’s eye

And lyric skill as fine as Wordsworth’s best



they drank her welcome to his heritage

of grey, grey-green, wet earth and shapes of stone.

Who weds a landscape will not die alone.



Those you castigated never forgave.

Omitted you as casually as passing an unmarked grave,

Armitage, I name you, a blackguard and a knave,

Who knows no more of poetry than McGonagall the brave,

Yet tops the list of Faber’s ‘Best Poets of Our Age’.



Longley gave you just ten lines in ‘Irish Poets Now’

Most missed you out entirely for the troubles you gave

Accusing like Zola those poetic whores

Who sold themselves to fashion when time after time

Your passions brought you to your knees, lashing

At those poetasters when their puffed-up slime

Won the medals and the prizes time after time

And got them all the limelight while your books

Were quietly ignored, the better you wrote,

The fewer got bought.

Belatedly I found a poem of yours ‘Leeds 2’

In ‘Flashpoint’, a paint-stained worn out

School anthology from 1962. Out of the blue

I wrote to you but the letter came back ‘Gone away

N.F.A.’ then I tried again and had a marvellous letter back

Full of stories of the great and good and all their private sins,

You knew where the bodies were buried.

Who put the knife in, who slept with who

For what reward. They never could shut you up

Or put you in a pen or pay you off and then came

Morley, Hulse and Kennedy’s ‘New Poetry’

Which did more damage to the course of poetry

Than anything I’ve read - poets unembarrassed

By the need to know more than what’s politically

White as snow. Constantine and Jackie Kay

And Hoffman with the right connections.

Sweeney and O’Brien bleeding in all the politically

Sensitive places, Peter Reading lifting

Horror headlines from the Sun to make a splash.

Sansom and Maxwell, Jamie and Greenlaw.

Proving lack of talent is no barrier to fame

If you lick the right arses and say how nice they taste.

Crawling up the ladder, declaring **** is grace.



 A talented drunken public servant

 Has the world’s ear and hates me.

 He ought to be in prison for misuse

 Of public funds and bigotry;

 But there’s some sparkle in his poetry.



You never flinched in the attack

But gave the devils their due:

The ‘Honest Ulsterman’ you founded

Lost its honesty the day you withdrew

But floundered on, publicly sighed and

Ungraciously expired as soon as you died.



You went with fallen women, smoked and sang and boozed,

Loved your many children, wrote poetry

As good as Yeats but the ignominy you had to bear

Bred an immortality impossible to share.

You showed us your own peccadilloes,

Your early lust for fame, but you learned

The cost of suffering, love and talent winning through,

Your best books your last, just two, like the letters

You wrote before your life was through.



The meeting you wanted could never happen:

I didn’t know about the stroke

That stilled your tongue and pen

But if you passed your mantle on to me

I’ll try and take up where you left off,

Give praise where praise is due

And blast the living daylights from those writers who

Betray the sacred art of making poetry true

To suffering and love, to passion and remorse

And try to steer a flimsy world upon a saner course.

 By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

In Pyrrha's rear (so poets sang
In ages past and gone),
The world from rocky fragments sprang--
Mankind from lifeless stone.

Their soul was but a thing of night,
Like stone and rock their heart;
The flaming torch of heaven so bright
Its glow could ne'er impart.

Young loves, all gently hovering round,
Their souls as yet had never bound
In soft and rosy chains;
No feeling muse had sought to raise
Their bosoms with ennobling lays,
Or sweet, harmonious strains.

Around each other lovingly
No garlands then entwined;
The sorrowing springs fled toward the sky,
And left the earth behind.

From out the sea Aurora rose
With none to hail her then;
The sun unhailed, at daylight's close,
In ocean sank again.

In forests wild, man went astray,
Misled by Luna's cloudy ray--
He bore an iron yoke;
He pined not for the stars on high,
With yearning for a deity
No tears in torrents broke.

.....

But see! from out the deep-blue ocean
Fair Venus springs with gentle motion
The graceful Naiad's smiling band
Conveys her to the gladdened strand,

A May-like, youthful, magic power
Entwines, like morning's twilight hour,
Around that form of godlike birth,
The charms of air, sea, heaven, and earth.

The day's sweet eye begins to bloom
Across the forest's midnight gloom;
Narcissuses, their balm distilling,
The path her footstep treads are filling.

A song of love, sweet Philomel,
Soon carolled through the grove;
The streamlet, as it murmuring fell,
Discoursed of naught but love,

Pygmalion! Happy one! Behold!
Life's glow pervades thy marble cold!
Oh, LOVE, thou conqueror all-divine,
Embrace each happy child of thine!

.....

By love are blest the gods on high,--
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

.....

The gods their days forever spend
In banquets bright that have no end,
In one voluptuous morning-dream,
And quaff the nectar's golden stream.

Enthroned in awful majesty
Kronion wields the bolt on high:
In abject fear Olympus rocks
When wrathfully he shakes his locks.

To other gods he leaves his throne,
And fills, disguised as earth's frail son,
The grove with mournful numbers;
The thunders rest beneath his feet,
And lulled by Leda's kisses sweet,
The Giant-Slayer slumbers.

Through the boundless realms of light
Phoebus' golden reins, so bright,
Guide his horses white as snow,
While his darts lay nations low.
But when love and harmony
Fill his breast, how willingly
Ceases Phoebus then to heed
Rattling dart and snow-white steed!

See! Before Kronion's spouse
Every great immortal bows;
Proudly soar the peacock pair
As her chariot throne they bear,
While she decks with crown of might
Her ambrosial tresses bright,

Beauteous princess, ah! with fear
Quakes before thy splendor, love,
Seeking, as he ventures near,
With his power thy breast to move!
Soon from her immortal throne
Heaven's great queen must fain descend,
And in prayer for beauty's zone,
To the heart-enchainer bend!

.....

By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

.....

'Tis love illumes the realms of night,
For Orcus dark obeys his might,
And bows before his magic spell
All-kindly looks the king of hell
At Ceres' daughter's smile so bright,--
Yes--love illumes the realms of night!

In hell were heard, with heavenly sound,
Holding in chains its warder bound,
Thy lays, O Thracian one!
A gentler doom dread Minos passed,
While down his cheeks the tears coursed fast
And e'en around Megaera's face
The serpents twined in fond embrace,
The lashes' work seemed done.

Driven by Orpheus' lyre away,
The vulture left his giant-prey [8];
With gentler motion rolled along
Dark Lethe and Cocytus' river,
Enraptured Thracian, by thy song,--
And love its burden was forever!

By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

.....

Wherever Nature's sway extends,
The fragrant balm of love descends,
His golden pinions quiver;
If 'twere not Venus' eye that gleams
Upon me in the moon's soft beams,
In sunlit hill or river,--
If 'twere not Venus smiles on me
From yonder bright and starry sea,

Not stars, not sun, not moonbeams sweet,
Could make my heart with rapture beat.
'Tis love alone that smilingly
Peers forth from Nature's blissful eye,
As from a mirror ever!

Love bids the silvery streamlet roll
More gently as it sighs along,
And breathes a living, feeling soul
In Philomel's sweet plaintive song;
'Tis love alone that fills the air
With streams from Nature's lute so fair.

Thou wisdom with the glance of fire,
Thou mighty goddess, now retire,
Love's power thou now must feel!
To victor proud, to monarch high,
Thou ne'er hast knelt in slavery,--
To love thou now must kneel!

Who taught thee boldly how to climb
The steep, but starry path sublime,
And reach the seats immortal?
Who rent the mystic veil in twain,
And showed thee the Elysian plain
Beyond death's gloomy portal?
If love had beckoned not from high,
Had we gained immortality?
If love had not inflamed each thought,
Had we the master spirit sought?
'Tis love that guides the soul along
To Nature's Father's heavenly throne

By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!

 This was the way of it, don't you know -- 
Ryan was "wanted" for stealing sheep, 
And never a trooper, high or low, 
Could find him -- catch a weasel asleep! 
Till Trooper Scott, from the Stockman's Ford -- 
A bushman, too, as I've heard them tell -- 
Chanced to find him drunk as a lord 
Round at the Shadow of Death Hotel. 
D'you know the place? It's a wayside inn, 
A low grog-shanty -- a bushman trap, 
Hiding away in its shame and sin 
Under the shelter of Conroy's Gap -- 
Under the shade of that frowning range 
The roughest crowd that ever drew breath -- 
Thieves and rowdies, uncouth and strange, 
Were mustered round at the "Shadow of Death". 

The trooper knew that his man would slide 
Like a dingo pup, if he saw the chance; 
And with half a start on the mountain side 
Ryan would lead him a merry dance. 
Drunk as he was when the trooper came, 
to him that did not matter a rap -- 
Drunk or sober, he was the same, 
The boldest rider in Conroy's Gap. 

"I want you, Ryan," the trooper said, 
"And listen to me, if you dare resist, 
So help me heaven, I'll shoot you dead!" 
He snapped the steel on his prisoner's wrist, 
And Ryan, hearing the handcuffs click, 
Recovered his wits as they turned to go, 
For fright will sober a man as quick 
As all the drugs that the doctors know. 

There was a girl in that shanty bar 
Went by the name of Kate Carew, 
Quiet and shy as the bush girls are, 
But ready-witted and plucky, too. 
She loved this Ryan, or so they say, 
And passing by, while her eyes were dim 
With tears, she said in a careless way, 
"The Swagman's round in the stable, Jim." 

Spoken too low for the trooper's ear, 
Why should she care if he heard or not? 
Plenty of swagmen far and near -- 
And yet to Ryan it meant a lot. 
That was the name of the grandest horse 
In all the district from east to west; 
In every show ring, on every course, 
They always counted The Swagman best. 

He was a wonder, a raking bay -- 
One of the grand old Snowdon strain -- 
One of the sort that could race and stay 
With his mighty limbs and his length of rein. 
Born and bred on the mountain side, 
He could race through scrub like a kangaroo; 
The girl herself on his back might ride, 
And The Swagman would carry her safely through. 

He would travel gaily from daylight's flush 
Till after the stars hung out their lamps; 
There was never his like in the open bush, 
And never his match on the cattle-camps. 
For faster horses might well be found 
On racing tracks, or a plain's extent, 
But few, if any, on broken ground 
Could see the way that The Swagman went. 

When this girl's father, old Jim Carew, 
Was droving out on the Castlereagh 
With Conroy's cattle, a wire came through 
To say that his wife couldn't live the day. 
And he was a hundred miles from home, 
As flies the crow, with never a track 
Through plains as pathless as ocean's foam; 
He mounted straight on The Swagman's back. 

He left the camp by the sundown light, 
And the settlers out on the Marthaguy 
Awoke and heard, in the dead of night, 
A single horseman hurrying by. 
He crossed the Bogan at Dandaloo, 
And many a mile of the silent plain 
That lonely rider behind him threw 
Before they settled to sleep again. 

He rode all noght, and he steered his course 
By the shining stars with a bushman's skill, 
And every time that he pressed his horse 
The Swagman answered him gamely still. 
He neared his home as the east was bright. 
The doctor met him outside the town 
"Carew! How far did you come last night?" 
"A hundred miles since the sun went down." 

And his wife got round, and an oath he passed, 
So long as he or one of his breed 
Could raise a coin, though it took their last, 
The Swagman never should want a feed. 
And Kate Carew, when her father died, 
She kept the horse and she kept him well; 
The pride of the district far and wide, 
He lived in style at the bush hotel. 

Such wasThe Swagman; and Ryan knew 
Nothing about could pace the crack; 
Little he'd care for the man in blue 
If once he got on The Swagman's back. 
But how to do it? A word let fall 
Gave him the hint as the girl passed by; 
Nothing but "Swagman -- stable wall; 
Go to the stable and mind your eye." 

He caught her meaning, and quickly turned 
To the trooper: "Reckon you'll gain a stripe 
By arresting me, and it's easily earned; 
Let's go to the stable and get my pipe, 
The Swagman has it." So off they went, 
And as soon as ever they turned their backs 
The girl slipped down, on some errand bent 
Behind the stable and seized an axe. 

The trooper stood at the stable door 
While Ryan went in quite cool and slow, 
And then (the trick had been played before) 
The girl outside gave the wall a blow. 
Three slabs fell out of the stable wall -- 
'Twas done 'fore ever the trooper knew -- 
And Ryan, as soon as he saw them fall, 
Mounted The Swagman and rushed him through. 

The trooper heard the hoof-beats ring 
In the stable yard, and he jammed the gate, 
But The Swagman rose with a mighty spring 
At the fence, and the trooper fired too late 
As they raced away, and his shots flew wide, 
And Ryan no longer need care a rap, 
For never a horse that was lapped in hide 
Could catch The Swagman in Conroy's Gap. 

And that's the story. You want to know 
If Ryan came back to his Kate Carew; 
Of course he should have, as stories go, 
But the worst of it is this story's true: 
And in real life it's a certain rule, 
Whatever poets and authors say 
Of high-toned robbers and all their school, 
These horsethief fellows aren't built that way. 

Come back! Don't hope it -- the slinking hound, 
He sloped across to the Queensland side, 
And sold The Swagman for fifty pound, 
And stole the money, and more beside. 
And took to drink, and by some good chance 
Was killed -- thrown out of a stolen trap. 
And that was the end of this small romance, 
The end of the story of Conroy's Gap.

 Where is the distant voice
That speaks like my soul?

Buried beneath daylight's clamor
Gold and the seasons

Beneath groaning streets
And the ferment of cities 

In my grave of care
And blond laughter

In what bare tomb must I lie 
To summon the voice 
That speaks like my soul?

 I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
 dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
 Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
 As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
 Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,--the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
 Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

 No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
 Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

 Oh! Arranmore, loved Arranmore, 
How oft I dream of thee, 
And of those days when, by thy shore, 
I wander'd young and free. 
Full many a path I've tried, since then, 
Through pleasure's flowery maze, 
But ne'er could find the bliss again 
I felt in those sweet days. 

How blithe upon thy breezy cliffs 
At sunny morn I've stood, 
With heart as bounding as the skiffs 
That danced along thy flood; 
Or, when the western wave grew bright 
With daylight's parting wing, 
Have sought that Eden in its light 
Which dreaming poets sing;

That Eden where the immortal brave 
Dwell in a land serene -- 
Whose bowers beyond the shining wave 
At sunset, oft are seen. 
Ah, dream too full of saddening truth! 
Those mansions o'er the main 
Are like the hopes I built in youth -- 
As sunny and as vain!

 (Time -- the Ninth Century)


To-morrow, comrade, we 
On the battle-plain must be, 
There to conquer, or both lie low! 
The morning star is up -- 
But there's wine still in the cup, 
And we'll take another quaff, ere we go, boy, go; 
We'll take another quaff, ere we go. 

'Tis true, in manliest eyes 
A passing tear will rise, 
When we think of the friends we leave lone; 
But what can wailing do? 
See, our goblet's weeping too! 
With its tears we'll chase away our own, boy, our own; 
With its tears we'll chase away our own. 

But daylight's stealing on; 
The last that o'er us shone 
Saw our children around us play; 
The next -- ah! where shall we 
And those rosy urchins be? 
But -- no matter -- grasp thy sword and away, boy, away; 
No matter -- grasp thy sword and away! 

Let those, who brook the chain 
Of Saxon or of Dane, 
Ignobly by their fire-sides stay; 
One sigh to home be given, 
One heartfelt prayer to heaven, 
Then, for Erin and her cause, boy, hurra! hurra! hurra! 
Then, for Erin and her cause, hurra!

 The dawning of morn, the daylight's sinking, 
The night's long hours still find me thinking 
Of thee, thee, only thee. 
When friends are met, and goblets crown'd, 
And smiles are near, that once enchanted, 
Unreach'd by all that sunshine round, 
My soul, like some dark spot, is haunted 
By thee, thee, only thee. 

Whatever in fame's high path could waken 
My spirit once, is now forsaken 
For thee, thee, only thee. 
Like shores, by which some headlong bark 
To the ocean hurries, resting never, 
Life's scenes go by me, bright or dark, 
I know not, heed not, hastening ever 
To thee, thee, only thee. 

I have not a joy but of thy bringing, 
And pain itself seems sweet when springing 
From thee, thee, only thee. 
Like spells, that nought on earth can break, 
Till lips, that know the charm, have spoken, 
This heart, howe'er the world may wake 
Its grief, its scorn, can but be broken 
By thee, thee, only thee.