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Best Famous Taper Poems

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

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Written by Sara Teasdale | Create an image from this poem

I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you, 
Not lost, although I long to be 
Lost as a candle lit at noon, 
Lost as a snowflake in the sea. 

You love me, and I find you still 
A spirit beautiful and bright, 
Yet I am I, who long to be 
Lost as a light is lost in light. 

Oh plunge me deep in love - put out 
My senses, leave me deaf and blind, 
Swept by the tempest of your love, 
A taper in a rushing wind. 


Written by Robert Pinsky | Create an image from this poem

Impossible To Tell

 to Robert Hass and in memory of Elliot Gilbert


Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,

The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. "Bashõ"

He named himself, "Banana Tree": banana
After the plant some grateful students gave him,
Maybe in appreciation of his guidance

Threading a long night through the rules and channels
Of their collaborative linking-poem
Scored in their teacher's heart: live, rigid, fluid

Like passages etched in a microscopic cicuit.
Elliot had in his memory so many jokes
They seemed to breed like microbes in a culture

Inside his brain, one so much making another
It was impossible to tell them all:
In the court-culture of jokes, a top banana.

Imagine a court of one: the queen a young mother,
Unhappy, alone all day with her firstborn child
And her new baby in a squalid apartment

Of too few rooms, a different race from her neighbors.
She tells the child she's going to kill herself.
She broods, she rages. Hoping to distract her,

The child cuts capers, he sings, he does imitations
Of different people in the building, he jokes,
He feels if he keeps her alive until the father

Gets home from work, they'll be okay till morning.
It's laughter versus the bedroom and the pills.
What is he in his efforts but a courtier?

Impossible to tell his whole delusion.
In the first months when I had moved back East
From California and had to leave a message

On Bob's machine, I used to make a habit
Of telling the tape a joke; and part-way through,
I would pretend that I forgot the punchline,

Or make believe that I was interrupted--
As though he'd be so eager to hear the end
He'd have to call me back. The joke was Elliot's,

More often than not. The doctors made the blunder
That killed him some time later that same year.
One day when I got home I found a message

On my machine from Bob. He had a story
About two rabbis, one of them tall, one short,
One day while walking along the street together

They see the corpse of a Chinese man before them,
And Bob said, sorry, he forgot the rest.
Of course he thought that his joke was a dummy,

Impossible to tell--a dead-end challenge.
But here it is, as Elliot told it to me:
The dead man's widow came to the rabbis weeping,

Begging them, if they could, to resurrect him.
Shocked, the tall rabbi said absolutely not.
But the short rabbi told her to bring the body

Into the study house, and ordered the shutters
Closed so the room was night-dark. Then he prayed
Over the body, chanting a secret blessing

Out of Kabala. "Arise and breathe," he shouted;
But nothing happened. The body lay still. So then
The little rabbi called for hundreds of candles

And danced around the body, chanting and praying
In Hebrew, then Yiddish, then Aramaic. He prayed
In Turkish and Egyptian and Old Galician

For nearly three hours, leaping about the coffin
In the candlelight so that his tiny black shoes
Seemed not to touch the floor. With one last prayer

Sobbed in the Spanish of before the Inquisition
He stopped, exhausted, and looked in the dead man's face.
Panting, he raised both arms in a mystic gesture

And said, "Arise and breathe!" And still the body
Lay as before. Impossible to tell
In words how Elliot's eyebrows flailed and snorted

Like shaggy mammoths as--the Chinese widow
Granting permission--the little rabbi sang
The blessing for performing a circumcision

And removed the dead man's foreskin, chanting blessings
In Finnish and Swahili, and bathed the corpse
From head to foot, and with a final prayer

In Babylonian, gasping with exhaustion,
He seized the dead man's head and kissed the lips
And dropped it again and leaping back commanded,

"Arise and breathe!" The corpse lay still as ever.
At this, as when Bashõ's disciples wind
Along the curving spine that links the renga

Across the different voices, each one adding
A transformation according to the rules
Of stasis and repetition, all in order

And yet impossible to tell beforehand,
Elliot changes for the punchline: the wee
Rabbi, still panting, like a startled boxer,

Looks at the dead one, then up at all those watching,
A kind of Mel Brooks gesture: "Hoo boy!" he says,
"Now that's what I call really dead." O mortal

Powers and princes of earth, and you immortal
Lords of the underground and afterlife,
Jehovah, Raa, Bol-Morah, Hecate, Pluto,

What has a brilliant, living soul to do with
Your harps and fires and boats, your bric-a-brac
And troughs of smoking blood? Provincial stinkers,

Our languages don't touch you, you're like that mother
Whose small child entertained her to beg her life.
Possibly he grew up to be the tall rabbi,

The one who washed his hands of all those capers
Right at the outset. Or maybe he became
The author of these lines, a one-man renga

The one for whom it seems to be impossible
To tell a story straight. It was a routine
Procedure. When it was finished the physicians

Told Sandra and the kids it had succeeded,
But Elliot wouldn't wake up for maybe an hour,
They should go eat. The two of them loved to bicker

In a way that on his side went back to Yiddish,
On Sandra's to some Sicilian dialect.
He used to scold her endlessly for smoking.

When she got back from dinner with their children
The doctors had to tell them about the mistake.
Oh swirling petals, falling leaves! The movement

Of linking renga coursing from moment to moment
Is meaning, Bob says in his Haiku book.
Oh swirling petals, all living things are contingent,

Falling leaves, and transient, and they suffer.
But the Universal is the goal of jokes,
Especially certain ethnic jokes, which taper

Down through the swirling funnel of tongues and gestures
Toward their preposterous Ithaca. There's one
A journalist told me. He heard it while a hero

Of the South African freedom movement was speaking
To elderly Jews. The speaker's own right arm
Had been blown off by right-wing letter-bombers.

He told his listeners they had to cast their ballots
For the ANC--a group the old Jews feared
As "in with the Arabs." But they started weeping

As the old one-armed fighter told them their country
Needed them to vote for what was right, their vote
Could make a country their children could return to

From London and Chicago. The moved old people
Applauded wildly, and the speaker's friend
Whispered to the journalist, "It's the Belgian Army

Joke come to life." I wish I could tell it
To Elliot. In the Belgian Army, the feud
Between the Flemings and Walloons grew vicious,

So out of hand the army could barely function.
Finally one commander assembled his men
In one great room, to deal with things directly.

They stood before him at attention. "All Flemings,"
He ordered, "to the left wall." Half the men
Clustered to the left. "Now all Walloons," he ordered,

"Move to the right." An equal number crowded
Against the right wall. Only one man remained
At attention in the middle: "What are you, soldier?"

Saluting, the man said, "Sir, I am a Belgian."
"Why, that's astonishing, Corporal--what's your name?"
Saluting again, "Rabinowitz," he answered:

A joke that seems at first to be a story
About the Jews. But as the renga describes
Religious meaning by moving in drifting petals

And brittle leaves that touch and die and suffer
The changing winds that riffle the gutter swirl,
So in the joke, just under the raucous music

Of Fleming, Jew, Walloon, a courtly allegiance
Moves to the dulcimer, gavotte and bow,
Over the banana tree the moon in autumn--

Allegiance to a state impossible to tell.
Written by Suleiman the Magnificent | Create an image from this poem

Gazel

My pain for thee balm in my sight resembles
Thy face's beam the clear moonlight resembles.
Thy black hair spread across they cheeks, the roses
O Liege, the garden's basil quite resembles.
Beside thy lip oped wide its mouth, the rosebud;
For shame it blushed, it blood outright resembles.
Thy mouth, a casket fair of pearls and rubies,
Thy teeth, pearls, thy lip coral bright resembles.
Their diver I, each morning and each even;
My weeping, Liege, the ocean's might resembles.
Lest he seduce thee, this my dread and terror,
That rival who Iblis in spite resembles.
Around the taper bright, thy cheek, Muhibbi
Turns and the moth in his sad plight resembles.
Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | Create an image from this poem

A Child Asleep

 How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
Pleasures, to make room for more---
Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking:
Throw them earthward where they grew.
Dim are such, beside the breaking
Amaranths he looks unto---
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden
From the paths they sprang beneath,
Now perhaps divinely holden,
Swing against him in a wreath---
We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.

Vision unto vision calleth,
While the young child dreameth on.
Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth
With the glory thou hast won!
Darker wert thou in the garden, yestermorn, by summer sun.

We should see the spirits ringing
Round thee,---were the clouds away.
'Tis the child-heart draws them, singing
In the silent-seeming clay---
Singing!---Stars that seem the mutest, go in music all the way.

As the moths around a taper,
As the bees around a rose,
As the gnats around a vapour,---
So the Spirits group and close
Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.

Shapes of brightness overlean thee,---
Flash their diadems of youth
On the ringlets which half screen thee,---
While thou smilest, . . . not in sooth
Thy smile . . . but the overfair one, dropt from some aethereal mouth.

Haply it is angels' duty,
During slumber, shade by shade:
To fine down this childish beauty
To the thing it must be made,
Ere the world shall bring it praises, or the tomb shall see it fade.

Softly, softly! make no noises!
Now he lieth dead and dumb---
Now he hears the angels' voices
Folding silence in the room---
Now he muses deep the meaning of the Heaven-words as they come.

Speak not! he is consecrated---
Breathe no breath across his eyes.
Lifted up and separated,
On the hand of God he lies,
In a sweetness beyond touching---held in cloistral sanctities.

Could ye bless him---father---mother ?
Bless the dimple in his cheek?
Dare ye look at one another,
And the benediction speak?
Would ye not break out in weeping, and confess yourselves too weak?

He is harmless---ye are sinful,---
Ye are troubled---he, at ease:
From his slumber, virtue winful
Floweth outward with increase---
Dare not bless him! but be blessed by his peace---and go in peace.
Written by John Donne | Create an image from this poem

Elegy X: The Dream

 Image of her whom I love, more than she,
Whose fair impression in my faithful heart
Makes me her medal, and makes her love me,
As Kings do coins, to which their stamps impart
The value: go, and take my heart from hence,
Which now is grown too great and good for me:
Honours oppress weak spirits, and our sense
Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see.

When you are gone, and Reason gone with you,
Then Fantasy is queen and soul, and all;
She can present joys meaner than you do;
Convenient, and more proportional.
So, if I dream I have you, I have you,
For, all our joys are but fantastical.
And so I 'scape the pain, for pain is true;
And sleep which locks up sense, doth lock out all.

After a such fruition I shall wake,
And, but the waking, nothing shall repent;
And shall to love more thankful sonnets make
Than if more honour, tears, and pains were spent.
But dearest heart, and dearer image, stay;
Alas, true joys at best are dream enough;
Though you stay here you pass too fast away:
For even at first life's taper is a snuff.

Filied with her love, may I be rather grown
Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.


Written by Sara Teasdale | Create an image from this poem

I Am Not Yours

 I am not yours, not lost in you,
 Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
 Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
 A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
 Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
 My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
 A taper in a rushing wind.
Written by Charles Baudelaire | Create an image from this poem

To A Madonna

 MADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee 
An altar deep in the sad soul of me; 
And in the darkest corner of my heart, 
From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart, 
Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine 
For thee to stand erect in, Image divine! 
And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned 
Wrought of the gold of my smooth Verse, set round 
With starry crystal rhymes; and I will make, 
O mortal maid, a Mantle for thy sake, 
And weave it of my jealousy, a gown 
Heavy, barbaric, stiff, and weighted down 
With my distrust, and broider round the hem 
Not pearls, but all my tears in place of them. 
And then thy wavering, trembling robe shall be 
All the desires that rise and fall in me 
From mountain-peaks to valleys of repose, 
Kissing thy lovely body's white and rose. 
For thy humiliated feet divine, 
Of my Respect I'll make thee Slippers fine 
Which, prisoning them within a gentle fold, 
Shall keep their imprint like a faithful mould. 
And if my art, unwearying and discreet, 
Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feet 
To have for Footstool, then thy heel shall rest 
Upon the snake that gnaws within my breast, 
Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born! 
And thou shalt trample down and make a scorn 
Of the vile reptile swollen up with hate. 
And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate, 
Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine, 
O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shine 
Shall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue, 
With eyes of flame for ever watching you. 
While all the love and worship in my sense 
Will be sweet smoke of myrrh and frankincense. 
Ceaselessly up to thee, white peak of snow, 
My stormy spirit will in vapours go! 

And last, to make thy drama all complete, 
That love and cruelty may mix and meet, 
I, thy remorseful torturer, will take 
All the Seven Deadly Sins, and from them make 
In darkest joy, Seven Knives, cruel-edged and keen, 
And like a juggler choosing, O my Queen, 
That spot profound whence love and mercy start, 
I'll plunge them all within thy panting heart!
Written by Thomas Hardy | Create an image from this poem

A Wife In London

 December 1899

I 

She sits in the tawny vapour 
That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, 
Behind whose webby fold-on-fold 
Like a waning taper 
The street-lamp glimmers cold.

A messenger's knock cracks smartly, 
Flashed news in her hand 
Of meaning it dazes to understand 
Though shaped so shortly: 
He--he has fallen--in the far South Land...

II

'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker, 
The postman nears and goes: 
A letter is brought whose lines disclose 
By the firelight flicker 
His hand, whom the worm now knows:

Fresh--firm--penned in highest feather-- 
Page-full of his hoped return, 
And of home-planned jaunts of brake and burn 
In the summer weather, 
And of new love that they would learn.
Written by Robert Graves | Create an image from this poem

Finland

 Feet and faces tingle 
In that frore land: 
Legs wobble and go wingle, 
You scarce can stand. 

The skies are jewelled all around, 
The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground, 
The Finn with face like paper 
And eyes like a lighted taper 
Hurls his rough rune 
At the wintry moon 
And stamps to mark the tune.
Written by Alexander Pope | Create an image from this poem

You Know Where You Did Despise

 You know where you did despise 
(Tother day) my little Eyes, 
Little Legs, and little Thighs, 
And some things, of little Size, 
You know where. 

You, tis true, have fine black eyes, 
Taper legs, and tempting Thighs, 
Yet what more than all we prize 
Is a Thing of little Size, 
You know where.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry