10 Best Famous Moonbeams Poems

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

• All Famous Moonbeams Poems

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

 When by my solitary hearth I sit,
 And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
 And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
 Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
 And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
 Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
 And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
 Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
 And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof!

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
 Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
 Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
 Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
 And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
 Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbidfancy cheer;
 Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
 Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
 And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
 From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
 To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
 Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
 And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

In the long vista of the years to roll,
 Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
 Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
 From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed---
 Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!

Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
 Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
 Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
 But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
 That fill the skies with silver glitterings!

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
 Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
 So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
 Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
 Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head!

 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him to wander by a sun-bright shore, 
To hear fine, fairy voices, and to fly 
With disembodied Ariel once more 
Above earth's wrack and ruin? Far and nigh 
The laughter of the thunder echoed loud, 
And harmless lightnings leapt from cloud to cloud. 


I

Floating upon a swelling wave of sound, 
We seemed to overlook an endless sea: 
Poised 'twixt clear heavens and glittering surf were we. 
We drank the air in flight: we knew no bound 
To the audacious ventures of desire. 
Nigh us the sun was dropping, drowned in gold; 
Deep, deep below the burning billows rolled; 
And all the sea sang like a smitten lyre. 
Oh, the wild voices of those chanting waves! 
The human faces glimpsed beneath the tide! 
Familiar eyes gazed from profound sea-caves, 
And we, exalted, were as we had died. 
We knew the sea was Life, the harmonious cry 
The blended discords of humanity. 


II

Look deeper yet: mark 'midst the wave-blurred mass, 
In lines distinct, in colors clear defined, 
The typic groups and figures of mankind. 
Behold within the cool and liquid glass 
Bright child-folk sporting with smooth yellow shells, 
Astride of dolphins, leaping up to kiss 
Fair mother-faces. From the vast abyss 
How joyously their thought-free laughter wells! 
Some slumber in grim caverns unafraid, 
Lulled by the overwhelming water's sound, 
And some make mouths at dragons, undismayed. 
Oh dauntless innocence! The gulfs profound 
Reëcho strangely with their ringing glee, 
And with wise mermaids' plaintive melody. 


III

What do the sea-nymphs in that coral cave? 
With wondering eyes their supple forms they bend 
O'er something rarely beautiful. They lend 
Their lithe white arms, and through the golden wave 
They lift it tenderly. Oh blinding sight! 
A naked, radiant goddess, tranced in sleep, 
Full-limbed, voluptuous, 'neath the mantling sweep 
Of auburn locks that kiss her ankles white! 
Upward they bear her, chanting low and sweet: 
The clinging waters part before their way, 
Jewels of flame are dancing 'neath their feet. 
Up in the sunshine, on soft foam, they lay 
Their precious burden, and return forlorn. 
Oh, bliss! oh, anguish! Mortals, Love is born! 


IV

Hark! from unfathomable deeps a dirge 
Swells sobbing through the melancholy air: 
Where love has entered, Death is also there. 
The wail outrings the chafed, tumultuous surge; 
Ocean and earth, the illimitable skies, 
Prolong one note, a mourning for the dead, 
The cry of souls not to be comforted. 
What piercing music! Funeral visions rise, 
And send the hot tears raining down our cheek. 
We see the silent grave upon the hill 
With its lone lilac-bush. O heart, be still! 
She will not rise, she will not stir nor speak. 
Surely, the unreturning dead are blest. 
Ring on, sweet dirge, and knell us to our rest! 


V

Upon the silver beach the undines dance 
With interlinking arms and flying hair; 
Like polished marble gleam their limbs left bare; 
Upon their virgin rites pale moonbeams glance. 
Softer the music! for their foam-bright feet 
Print not the moist floor where they trip their round: 
Affrighted they will scatter at a sound, 
Leap in their cool sea-chambers, nibly fleet, 
And we shall doubt that we have ever seen, 
While our sane eyes behold stray wreaths of mist, 
Shot with faint colors by the moon-rays kissed, 
Floating snow-soft, snow-white, where these had been. 
Already, look! the wave-washed sands are bare, 
And mocking laughter ripples through the air. 


VI

Divided 'twixt the dream-world and the real, 
We heard the waxing passion of the song 
Soar as to scale the heavens on pinions strong. 
Amidst the long-reverberant thunder-peal, 
Against the rain-blurred square of light, the head 
Of the pale poet at the lyric keys 
Stood boldly cut, absorbed in reveries, 
While over it keen-bladed lightnings played. 
"Rage on, wild storm!" the music seemed to sing: 
"Not all the thunders of thy wrath can move 
The soul that's dedicate to worshipping 
Eternal Beauty, everlasting Love." 
No more! the song was ended, and behold, 
A rainbow trembling on a sky of gold! 


Epilogue

Forth in the sunlit, rain-bathed air we stepped, 
Sweet with the dripping grass and flowering vine, 
And saw through irised clouds the pale sun shine. 
Back o'er the hills the rain-mist slowly crept 
Like a transparent curtain's silvery sheen; 
And fronting us the painted bow was arched, 
Whereunder the majestic cloud-shapes marched: 
In the wet, yellow light the dazzling green 
Of lawn and bush and tree seemed stained with blue. 
Our hearts o'erflowed with peace. With smiles we spake 
Of partings in the past, of courage new, 
Of high achievement, of the dreams that make 
A wonder and a glory of our days, 
And all life's music but a hymn of praise.

 Come, walk with me, 
There's only thee 
To bless my spirit now - 
We used to love on winter nights
To wander through the snow; 
Can we not woo back old delights?
The clouds rush dark and wild 
They fleck with shade our mountain heights
The same as long ago 
And on the horizon rest at last
In looming masses piled; 
While moonbeams flash and fly so fast
We scarce can say they smiled - 

Come walk with me, come walk with me;
We were not once so few
But Death has stolen our company
As sunshine steals the dew -
He took them one by one and we 
Are left the only two; 
So closer would my feelings twine
Because they have no stay but thine - 

'Nay call me not - it may not be
Is human love so true? 
Can Friendship's flower droop on for years
And then revive anew? 
No, though the soil be wet with tears, 
How fair soe'er it grew
The vital sap once perished
Will never flow again 
And surer than that dwelling dread,
The narrow dungeon of the dead 
Time parts the hearts of men -'

 When once the sun sinks in the west,
And dewdrops pearl the evening's breast;
Almost as pale as moonbeams are,
Or its companionable star,
The evening primrose opes anew
Its delicate blossoms to the dew;
And, hermit-like, shunning the light,
Wastes its fair bloom upon the night,
Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,
Knows not the beauty it possesses;
Thus it blooms on while night is by;
When day looks out with open eye,
Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
It faints and withers and is gone.

 Heigh ho! to sleep I vainly try;
Since twelve I haven't closed an eye,
And now it's three, and as I lie,
From Notre Dame to St. Denis
The bells of Paris chime to me;
"You're young," they say, "and strong and free."

I do not turn with sighs and groans
To ease my limbs, to rest my bones,
As if my bed were stuffed with stones,
No peevish murmur tips my tongue --
Ah no! for every sound upflung
Says: "Lad, you're free and strong and young."

And so beneath the sheet's caress
My body purrs with happiness;
Joy bubbles in my veins. . . . Ah yes,
My very blood that leaps along
Is chiming in a joyous song,
Because I'm young and free and strong.

Maybe it is the springtide. I am so happy I am afraid. 
The sense of living fills me with exultation. I want to sing, 
to dance; I am dithyrambic with delight.

I think the moon must be to blame:
It fills the room with fairy flame;
It paints the wall, it seems to pour
A dappled flood upon the floor.
I rise and through the window stare . . .
Ye gods! how marvelously fair!
From Montrouge to the Martyr's Hill,
A silver city rapt and still;
Dim, drowsy deeps of opal haze,
And spire and dome in diamond blaze;
The little lisping leaves of spring
Like sequins softly glimmering;
Each roof a plaque of argent sheen,
A gauzy gulf the space between;
Each chimney-top a thing of grace,
Where merry moonbeams prank and chase;
And all that sordid was and mean,
Just Beauty, deathless and serene.

O magic city of a dream!
From glory unto glory gleam;
And I will gaze and pity those
Who on their pillows drowse and doze . . .
And as I've nothing else to do,
Of tea I'll make a rousing brew,
And coax my pipes until they croon,
And chant a ditty to the moon.

There! my tea is black and strong. Inspiration comes with 
every sip. Now for the moon.

The moon peeped out behind the hill
As yellow as an apricot;
Then up and up it climbed until
Into the sky it fairly got;
The sky was vast and violet;
The poor moon seemed to faint in fright,
And pale it grew and paler yet,
Like fine old silver, rinsed and bright.
And yet it climbed so bravely on
Until it mounted heaven-high;
Then earthward it serenely shone,
A silver sovereign of the sky,
A bland sultana of the night,
Surveying realms of lily light.

 When the busy day is done,
And my weary little one
Rocketh gently to and fro;
When the night winds softly blow,
And the crickets in the glen
Chirp and chirp and chirp again;
When upon the haunted green
Fairies dance around their queen -
Then from yonder misty skies
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes.

Through the murk and mist and gloam
To our quiet, cozy home,
Where to singing, sweet and low,
Rocks a cradle to and fro;
Where the clock's dull monotone
Telleth of the day that's done;
Where the moonbeams hover o'er
Playthings sleeping on the floor -
Where my weary wee one lies
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes.

Cometh like a fleeting ghost
From some distant eerie coast;
Never footfall can you hear
As that spirit fareth near -
Never whisper, never word
From that shadow-queen is heard.
In ethereal raiment dight,
From the realm of fay and sprite
In the depth of yonder skies
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes.

Layeth she her hands upon
My dear weary little one,
And those white hands overspread
Like a veil the curly head,
Seem to fondle and caress
Every little silken tress;
Then she smooths the eyelids down
Over those two eyes of brown -
In such soothing, tender wise
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes.

Dearest, feel upon your brow
That caressing magic now;
For the crickets in the glen
Chirp and chirp and chirp again,
While upon the haunted green
Fairies dance around their queen,
And the moonbeams hover o'er
Playthings sleeping on the floor -
Hush, my sweet! from yonder skies
Cometh Lady Button-Eyes!

 See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
The path they leave behind them lost--wide open the path beyond,
The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended;
All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended!
No!--disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges--
The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes.
For ay destroyed--for ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation;
And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation.
And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor,
And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey,
Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way.
What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune,
A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon;
That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment,
Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment.
And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears?
The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres?
And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps?
The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps?
The suns that wheel in varying maze?--That music thou discernest?
No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.

 The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, -- visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, --
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening, --
Like clouds in starlight widely spread, --
Like memory of music fled, --
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, -- where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom, -- why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
To sage or poet these responses given --
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells -- whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.
Thy light alone -- like mist oe'er the mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal, and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
Thou messgenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes --
Thou -- that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not -- lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;
I was not heard -- I saw them not --
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming, --
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine -- have I not kept the vow?
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers
Of studious zeal or love's delight
Outwatched with me the envious night --
They know that never joy illumed my brow
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free
This world from its dark slavery,
That thou - O awful Loveliness,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past -- there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm -- to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.

 "Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.