Best Famous Excelling Poems

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

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• All Famous Excelling Poems

Written by William Shakespeare | Silvia WHO is Silvia? What is she? That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness: Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness; And, being help'd, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.

Written by Eugene Field | Jessie When I remark her golden hair Swoon on her glorious shoulders, I marvel not that sight so rare Doth ravish all beholders; For summon hence all pretty girls Renowned for beauteous tresses, And you shall find among their curls There's none so fair as Jessie's. And Jessie's eyes are, oh, so blue And full of sweet revealings-- They seem to look you through and through And read your inmost feelings; Nor black emits such ardent fires, Nor brown such truth expresses-- Admit it, all ye gallant squires-- There are no eyes like Jessie's. Her voice (like liquid beams that roll From moonland to the river) Steals subtly to the raptured soul, Therein to lie and quiver; Or falls upon the grateful ear With chaste and warm caresses-- Ah, all concede the truth (who hear): There's no such voice as Jessie's. Of other charms she hath such store All rivalry excelling, Though I used adjectives galore, They'd fail me in the telling; But now discretion stays my hand-- Adieu, eyes, voice, and tresses. Of all the husbands in the land There's none so fierce as Jessie's.

Written by Thomas Hardy | The Mother Mourns When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time, And sedges were horny, And summer's green wonderwork faltered On leaze and in lane, I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly Came wheeling around me Those phantoms obscure and insistent That shadows unchain. Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me A low lamentation, As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened, Perplexed, or in pain. And, heeding, it awed me to gather That Nature herself there Was breathing in aerie accents, With dirgeful refrain, Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days, Had grieved her by holding Her ancient high fame of perfection In doubt and disdain . . . - "I had not proposed me a Creature (She soughed) so excelling All else of my kingdom in compass And brightness of brain "As to read my defects with a god-glance, Uncover each vestige Of old inadvertence, annunciate Each flaw and each stain! "My purpose went not to develop Such insight in Earthland; Such potent appraisements affront me, And sadden my reign! "Why loosened I olden control here To mechanize skywards, Undeeming great scope could outshape in A globe of such grain? "Man's mountings of mind-sight I checked not, Till range of his vision Has topped my intent, and found blemish Throughout my domain. "He holds as inept his own soul-shell - My deftest achievement - Contemns me for fitful inventions Ill-timed and inane: "No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape, My moon as the Night-queen, My stars as august and sublime ones That influences rain: "Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching, Immoral my story, My love-lights a lure, that my species May gather and gain. "'Give me,' he has said, 'but the matter And means the gods lot her, My brain could evolve a creation More seemly, more sane.' - "If ever a naughtiness seized me To woo adulation From creatures more keen than those crude ones That first formed my train - "If inly a moment I murmured, 'The simple praise sweetly, But sweetlier the sage'--and did rashly Man's vision unrein, "I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners, Whose brains I could blandish, To measure the deeps of my mysteries Applied them in vain. "From them my waste aimings and futile I subtly could cover; 'Every best thing,' said they, 'to best purpose Her powers preordain.' - "No more such! . . . My species are dwindling, My forests grow barren, My popinjays fail from their tappings, My larks from their strain. "My leopardine beauties are rarer, My tusky ones vanish, My children have aped mine own slaughters To quicken my wane. "Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes, And slimy distortions, Let nevermore things good and lovely To me appertain; "For Reason is rank in my temples, And Vision unruly, And chivalrous laud of my cunning Is heard not again!"

Written by Francesco Petrarch | Canzone IX [Pg 74] CANZONE IX. Gentil mia donna, i' veggio. IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THEY LEAD HIM TO CONTEMPLATE THE PATH OF LIFE. Lady, in your bright eyesSoft glancing round, I mark a holy light,Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies;And to my practised sight,From thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might,Visibly, palpably, the soul beams forth.This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth,And urges me to seek the glorious goal;This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng,Nor can the human tongueTell how those orbs divine o'er all my soulExert their sweet control,Both when hoar winter's frosts around are flung,And when the year puts on his youth again,Jocund, as when this bosom first knew pain. Oh! if in that high sphere,From whence the Eternal Ruler of the starsIn this excelling work declared his might,All be as fair and bright,Loose me from forth my darksome prison here,That to so glorious life the passage bars;Then, in the wonted tumult of my breast,I hail boon Nature, and the genial dayThat gave me being, and a fate so blest,And her who bade hope beamUpon my soul; for till then burthensomeWas life itself become:But now, elate with touch of self-esteem,High thoughts and sweet within that heart arise,Of which the warders are those beauteous eyes. No joy so exquisiteDid Love or fickle Fortune ere devise,In partial mood, for favour'd votaries,But I would barter itFor one dear glance of those angelic eyes,Whence springs my peace as from its living root.O vivid lustre! of power absolute[Pg 75]O'er all my being—source of that delight,By which consumed I sink, a willing prey.As fades each lesser rayBefore your splendour more intense and bright,So to my raptured heart,When your surpassing sweetness you impart,No other thought of feeling may remainWhere you, with Love himself, despotic reign. All sweet emotions e'erBy happy lovers felt in every clime,Together all, may not with mine compare,When, as from time to time,I catch from that dark radiance rich and deepA ray in which, disporting, Love is seen;And I believe that from my cradled sleep,By Heaven provided this resource hath been,'Gainst adverse fortune, and my nature frail.Wrong'd am I by that veil,And the fair hand which oft the light eclipse,That all my bliss hath wrought;And whence the passion struggling on my lips,Both day and night, to vent the breast o'erfraught,Still varying as I read her varying thought. For that (with pain I find)Not Nature's poor endowments may aloneRender me worthy of a look so kind,I strive to raise my mindTo match with the exalted hopes I own,And fires, though all engrossing, pure as mine.If prone to good, averse to all things base,Contemner of what worldlings covet most,I may become by long self-discipline.Haply this humble boastMay win me in her fair esteem a place;For sure the end and aimOf all my tears, my sorrowing heart's sole claim,Were the soft trembling of relenting eyes,The generous lover's last, best, dearest prize. My lay, thy sister-song is gone before.And now another in my teeming brainPrepares itself: whence I resume the strain. Dacre.

Written by Emily Dickinson | I see thee better -- in the Dark -- I see thee better -- in the Dark -- I do not need a Light -- The Love of Thee -- a Prism be -- Excelling Violet -- I see thee better for the Years That hunch themselves between -- The Miner's Lamp -- sufficient be -- To nullify the Mine -- And in the Grave -- I see Thee best -- Its little Panels be Aglow -- All ruddy -- with the Light I held so high, for Thee -- What need of Day -- To Those whose Dark -- hath so -- surpassing Sun -- It deem it be -- Continually -- At the Meridian?

Written by Thomas Moore | Though Humble the Banquet Though humble the banquet to which I invite thee, Thou'lt find there the best a poor bard can command; Eyes, beaming with welcome, shall throng round, to light thee, And Love serve the feast with his own willing hand. And though Fortune may seem to have turn'd from the dwelling Of him thou regardest her favouring ray, Thou wilt find there a gift, all her treasures excelling, Which, proudly he feels, hath ennobled his way. 'Tis that freedom of mind, which no vulgar dominion Can turn from the path a pure conscience approves, Which, with hope in the heart, and no chain on the pinion, Holds upwards its course to the light which it loves. 'Tis this makes the pride of his humble retreat, And with this, though of all other treasures bereaved, The breeze of his garden to him is more sweet Than the costliest incense that Pomp e'er received. Then, come, if a board so untempting hath power To win thee from grandeur, its best shall be thine; And there's one, long the light of the bard's happy bower, Who, smiling will blend her bright welcome with mine.