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Best Famous Sapless Poems

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

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Written by George Herbert | Create an image from this poem

Nature

 Full of rebellion, I would die, 
Or fight, or travel, or deny
That thou has aught to do with me.
O tame my heart; 
It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.

If thou shalt let this venom lurk, 
And in suggestions fume and work, 
My soul will turn to bubbles straight, 
And thence by kind
Vanish into a wind, 
Making thy workmanship deceit.

O smooth my rugged heart, and there
Engrave thy rev'rend law and fear; 
Or make a new one, since the old
Is sapless grown, 
And a much fitter stone
To hide my dust, than thee to hold.


Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley | Create an image from this poem

Ode to the West Wind

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being¡ª 
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!¡ªO thou 5 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
The wing¨¨d seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill¡ª 
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere¡ª 
Destroyer and Preserver¡ªhear, O hear! 

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 
Angels of rain and lightning! they are spread 
On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 
Of some fierce M?nad, ev'n from the dim verge 
Of the horizon to the zenith's height¡ª 
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 
Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst:¡ªO hear! 

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams 
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
Beside a pumice isle in Bai?'s bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 35 
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou 
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40 
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear 
And tremble and despoil themselves:¡ªO hear! 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; 
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 
The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O uncontrollable!¡ªif even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 50 
Scarce seem'd a vision,¡ªI would ne'er have striven 
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! 
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 55 
One too like thee¡ªtameless, and swift, and proud. 

Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is: 
What if my leaves are falling like its own! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60 
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! 
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, 
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; 
And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! 
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth 
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, 
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70 
Written by Charlotte Bronte | Create an image from this poem

Life

 "What is this world?­thy school, O misery!
"Our only lesson is to learn to suffer." 

- YOUNG. 


LOVE, thou sportive fickle boy, 
Source of anguish, child of joy, 
Ever wounding­ever smiling, 
Soothing still, and still beguiling; 
What are all thy boasted treasures, 
Tender sorrows, transient pleasures? 
Anxious hopes, and jealous fears, 
LAUGHING HOURS, and MOURNING YEARS. 

What is FRIENDSHIP'S soothing name?
But a shad'wy, vap'rish flame; 
Fancy's balm for ev'ry wound, 
Ever sought, but rarely found; 
What is BEAUTY ? but a flow'r, 
Blooming, fading in an hour; 
Deck'd with brightest tints at morn, 
At twilight with'ring on a thorn; 
Like the gentle Rose of spring, 
Chill'd by ev'ry zephyr's wing, 
Ah! how soon its colour flies, 
Blushes, trembles, falls, and dies. 

What is YOUTH ? a smiling sorrow, 
Blithe to day, and sad to-morrow; 
Never fix'd, for ever ranging, 
Laughing, weeping, doating, changing; 
Wild, capricious, giddy, vain, 
Cloy'd with pleasure, nurs'd with pain; 
AGE steals on with wint'ry face, 
Ev'ry rapt'rous Hope to chase; 
Like a wither'd, sapless tree, 
Bow'd to chilling Fate's decree; 
Strip'd of all its foliage gay, 
Drooping at the close of day; 
What of tedious Life remains? 
Keen regrets and cureless pains; 
Till DEATH appears, a welcome friend, 
To bid the scene of sorrow end.
Written by John Wilmot | Create an image from this poem

The Imperfect Enjoyment

 Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms,legs,lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should prepare to throw
The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.
My fluttering soul, sprung with the painted kiss,
Hangs hovering o'er her balmy brinks of bliss.
But whilst her busy hand would guide that part
Which should convey my soul up to her heart,
In liquid raptures I dissolve all o'er,
Melt into sperm and, and spend at every pore.
A touch from any part of her had done't:
Her hand, her foot, her very look's a ****.

Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise,
And from her body wipes the clammy joys,
When, with a thousand kisses wandering o'er
My panting bosom, "Is there then no more?"
She cries. "All this to love and rapture's due;
Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?"

But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive,
To show my wished obedience vainly strive:
I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive.
Eager desires confound my first intent,
Succeeding shame does more success prevent,
And rage at last confirms me impotent.
Ev'n her fair hand, which might bid heat return
To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn,
Applied to my dead cinder, warms no more
Than fire to ashes could past flames restore.
Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,
A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.
This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried,
With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed;
Which nature still directed with such art
That it through every **** reached every heart -
Stiffly resolved, 'twould carelessly invade
Woman or man, nor aught its fury stayed:
Where'er it pierced, a **** it found or made -
Now languid lies in this unhappy hour,
Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower.

Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,
False to my passion, fatal to my fame,
Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove
So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?
What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore
Didst thou e'er fail in all thy life before?
When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way,
With what officious haste dost thou obey!
Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets
Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets,
But if his king or country claim his aid,
The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head;
Ev'n so thy brutal valour is displayed,
Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade,
But when great Love the onset does command,
Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar'st not stand.
Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most,
Through all the town a common fucking-post,
On whom each whore relieves her tingling ****
As hogs do rub themselves on gates and grunt,
May'st thou to ravenous chancres be a prey,
Or in consuming weepings waste away;
May strangury and stone thy days attend;
May'st thou ne'er piss, who did refuse to spend
When all my joys did on false thee depend.
And may ten thousand abler pricks agree
To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.
Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley | Create an image from this poem

The Invitation

BEST and brightest come away ¡ª 
Fairer far than this fair day  
Which like thee to those in sorrow 
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 
To the rough year just awake 5 
In its cradle on the brake. 
The brightest hour of unborn Spring 
Through the winter wandering  
Found it seems the halcyon morn 
To hoar February born; 10 
Bending from heaven in azure mirth  
It kiss'd the forehead of the earth  
And smiled upon the silent sea  
And bade the frozen streams be free  
And waked to music all their fountains 15 
And breathed upon the frozen mountains  
And like a prophetess of May 
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way  
Making the wintry world appear 
Like one on whom thou smilest dear. 20 

Away away from men and towns  
To the wild woods and the downs¡ª 
To the silent wilderness  
Where the soul need not repress 
Its music lest it should not find 25 
An echo in another's mind  
While the touch of Nature's art 
Harmonizes heart to heart. 

Radiant Sister of the Day 
Awake! arise! and come away! 30 
To the wild woods and the plains  
To the pools where winter rains 
Image all their roof of leaves  
Where the pine its garland weaves 
Of sapless green and ivy dun 35 
Round stems that never kiss the sun; 
Where the lawns and pastures be 
And the sandhills of the sea; 
Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
The daisy-star that never sets 40 
And wind-flowers and violets 
Which yet join not scent to hue 
Crown the pale year weak and new; 

When the night is left behind 
In the deep east dim and blind 45 
And the blue noon is over us  
And the multitudinous 
Billows murmur at our feet  
Where the earth and ocean meet  
And all things seem only one 50 
In the universal Sun. 


Written by John Crowe Ransom | Create an image from this poem

Dead Boy

 The little cousin is dead, by foul subtraction,
A green bough from Virginia's aged tree,
And none of the county kin like the transaction,
Nor some of the world of outer dark, like me.

A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever,
A black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping,
A sword beneath his mother's heart—yet never
Woman bewept her babe as this is weeping.

A pig with a pasty face, so I had said,
Squealing for cookies, kinned by poor pretense
With a noble house. But the little man quite dead,
I see the forbears' antique lineaments.

The elder men have strode by the box of death
To the wide flag porch, and muttering low send round
The bruit of the day. O friendly waste of breath!
Their hearts are hurt with a deep dynastic wound.

He was pale and little, the foolish neighbors say;
The first-fruits, saith the Preacher, the Lord hath taken;
But this was the old tree's late branch wrenched away,
Grieving the sapless limbs, the short and shaken.
Written by Conrad Aiken | Create an image from this poem

The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song

 No, I shall not say why it is that I love you—
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,—your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .
I'll say—my childhood broke through chords of music
—Or were they chords of sun?—wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty. .
I lay in the warm sweet grass on a blue May morning,
My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover,
And drowsed there like a bee. . . .blue days behind me
Stretched like a chain of deep blue pools of magic,
Enchanted, silent, timeless. . . .days before me
Murmured of blue-sea mornings, noons of gold,
Green evenings streaked with lilac, bee-starred nights.
Confused soft clouds of music fled above me.

Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.
I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight,
Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of beauty,
Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.

No, I shall not say 'this is why I praise you—
Because you say such wise things, or such foolish. . .'
You would not have me say what you know better?
Let me instead be silent, only saying—:
My childhood lives in me—or half-lives, rather—
And, if I close my eyes cool chords of music
Flow up to me . . . long chords of wind and sunlight. . . .
Shadows of intricate vines on sunlit walls,
Deep bells beating, with aeons of blue between them,
Grass blades leagues apart with worlds between them,
Walls rushing up to heaven with stars upon them. . .
I lay in my bed and through the tall night window
Saw the green lightning plunging among the clouds,
And heard the harsh rain storm at the panes and roof. . . .
How should I know—how should I now remember—
What half-dreamed great wings curved and sang above me?
What wings like swords? What eyes with the dread night in them?

This I shall say.—I lay by the hot white sand-dunes. .
Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny,
Stared at the sky. And silently there above us
Day after day, beyond our dreams and knowledge,
Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows,
Swift and blue, or dark. . . .What did they mean?
What sinister threat of power? What hint of beauty?
Prelude to what gigantic music, or subtle?
Only I know these things leaned over me,
Brooded upon me, paused, went flowing softly,
Glided and passed. I loved, I desired, I hated,
I struggled, I yielded and loved, was warmed to blossom . . .
You, when your eyes have evening sunlight in them,
Set these dunes before me, these salt bright flowers,
These presences. . . .I drowse, they stream above me,
I struggle, I yield and love, I am warmed to dream.

You are the window (if I could tell I'd tell you)
Through which I see a clear far world of sunlight.
You are the silence (if you could hear you'd hear me)
In which I remember a thin still whisper of singing.
It is not you I laugh for, you I touch!
My hands, that touch you, suddenly touch white cobwebs,
Coldly silvered, heavily silvered with dewdrops;
And clover, heavy with rain; and cold green grass. . .
Written by Thomas Moore | Create an image from this poem

Translation From the Gull Language

 'Twas grav'd on the Stone of Destiny,
In letters four, and letters three;
And ne'er did the King of the Gulls go by
But those awful letters scar'd his eye;
For he knew that a Prophet Voice had said
"As long as those words by man were read,
The ancient race of the Gulls should ne'er
One hour of peace or plenty share."
But years and years successive flew
And the letters still more legible grew, --
At top, a T, an H, an E,
And underneath, D. E. B. T.


Some thought them Hebrew, -- such as Jews,
More skill'd in Scrip than Scripture use;
While some surmis'd 'twas an ancient way
Of keeping accounts, (well known in the day
Of the fam'd Didlerius Jeremias,
Who had thereto a wonderful bias,)
And prov'd in books most learnedly boring,
'Twas called the Pontick way of scoring.
Howe'er this be, there never were yet
Seven letters of the alphabet,
That, 'twixt them form'd so grim a spell,
Or scar'd a Land of Gulls so well,
As did this awful riddle-me-ree
Of T.H.E.D.E.B.T.


Hark! - it is struggling Freedom's cry;
"Help, help, ye nations, or I die;
'Tis freedom's fight, and on the field
Where I expire, your doom is seal'd."
The Gull-King hears the awakening call,
He hath summon'd his Peers and Patriots all,
And he asks, "Ye noble Gulls, shall we
Stand basely by at the fall of the Free,
Nor utter a curse, nor deal a blow?"
And they answer, with voice of thunder, "No."


Out fly their flashing swords in the air! -
But, -- why do they rest suspended there?
What sudden blight, what baleful charm,
Hath chill'd each eye and check'd each arm?
Alas! some withering hand hath thrown
The veil from off that fatal stone,
And pointing now, with sapless finger,
Showeth where dark those letters linger, --
Letters four, and letters three,
T.H.E. D.E.B.T.


At sight thereof, each lifted brand
Powerless falls from every hand;
In vain the Patriot knits his brow, --
Even talk, his staple, fails him now.
In vain the King like a hero treads,
His Lords of the Treasury shake their heads;
And to all his talk of "brave and free",
No answer getteth His Majesty
But "T.H.E. D.E.B.T."


In short, the whole Gull nation feels
The're fairly spell-bound, neck and heels;
And so, in the face of the laughing world,
Must e'en sit down, with banners furled,
Adjourning all their dreams sublime
Of glory and war to -- some other time.
Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

The Vale To You, To Me The Heights

 A FABLE. 
 
 {Bk. III. vi., October, 1846.} 


 A lion camped beside a spring, where came the Bird 
 Of Jove to drink: 
 When, haply, sought two kings, without their courtier herd, 
 The moistened brink, 
 Beneath the palm—they always tempt pugnacious hands— 
 Both travel-sore; 
 But quickly, on the recognition, out flew brands 
 Straight to each core; 
 As dying breaths commingle, o'er them rose the call 
 Of Eagle shrill: 
 "Yon crownèd couple, who supposed the world too small, 
 Now one grave fill! 
 Chiefs blinded by your rage! each bleachèd sapless bone 
 Becomes a pipe 
 Through which siroccos whistle, trodden 'mong the stone 
 By quail and snipe. 
 Folly's liege-men, what boots such murd'rous raid, 
 And mortal feud? 
 I, Eagle, dwell as friend with Leo—none afraid— 
 In solitude: 
 At the same pool we bathe and quaff in placid mood. 
 Kings, he and I; 
 For I to him leave prairie, desert sands and wood, 
 And he to me the sky." 
 
 H.L.W. 


 





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