10 Best Famous Taylor Poems

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

• All Famous Taylor Poems

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud---and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
`Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
>From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shall learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o’er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the arméd man,
The statue of the arméd knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene’er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another’s love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,—

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain—
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain;—

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;—

His dying words—but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faultering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin-shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved—she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped—
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

‘Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly ’twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.

 This is not bad --
ambling along 44th Street
with Sonny Rollins for company,
his music flowing through the soft calipers
of these earphones,

as if he were right beside me
on this clear day in March,
the pavement sparkling with sunlight,
pigeons fluttering off the curb,
nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs.

In fact, I would say
my delight at being suffused
with phrases from his saxophone --
some like honey, some like vinegar --
is surpassed only by my gratitude

to Tommy Potter for taking the time
to join us on this breezy afternoon
with his most unwieldy bass
and to the esteemed Arthur Taylor
who is somehow managing to navigate

this crowd with his cumbersome drums.
And I bow deeply to Thelonious Monk
for figuring out a way
to motorize -- or whatever -- his huge piano
so he could be with us today.

This music is loud yet so confidential.
I cannot help feeling even more
like the center of the universe
than usual as I walk along to a rapid
little version of "The Way You Look Tonight,"

and all I can say to my fellow pedestrians,
to the woman in the white sweater,
the man in the tan raincoat and the heavy glasses,
who mistake themselves for the center of the universe --
all I can say is watch your step,

because the five of us, instruments and all,
are about to angle over
to the south side of the street
and then, in our own tightly knit way,
turn the corner at Sixth Avenue.

And if any of you are curious
about where this aggregation,
this whole battery-powered crew,
is headed, let us just say
that the real center of the universe,

the only true point of view,
is full of hope that he,
the hub of the cosmos
with his hair blown sideways,
will eventually make it all the way downtown.

 This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
I got a thirty-five dollar raise
in salary, and through the pea-soup fogs 
I drove the General, and introduced him 
at rallies. I had a totalitarian approach 
and was a massive boost to his popularity. 
I did my best to reduce the number of people. 
The local bourgeoisie did not exist.
One of them was a mystic 
and walked right over me 
as if I were a bed of hot coals.
This is par for the course-
I will be employing sundry golf metaphors 
henceforth, because a dog, best friend 
and chief advisor to the General, should. 
While dining with the General I said,
"Let's play the back nine in a sacred rage. 
Let's tee-off over the foredoomed community 
and putt ourselves thunderously, touching bottom." 
He drank it all in, rugged and dusky.
I think I know what he was thinking. 
He held his automatic to my little head 
and recited a poem about my many weaknesses, 
for which I loved him so.

 They ask me if I've ever thought about the end of
the world, and I say, "Come in, come in, let me
give you some lunch, for God's sake." After a few
bites it's the afterlife they want to talk about.
"Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf
skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about
redemption and the chosen few sitting right by
His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I
am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's
have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday
at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about
my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies
everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like to take a
nap, I know I would." They stand and back away
from me, out the door, walking toward my
neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and
they see nothing without end.

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; 
I love a prophet of the soul; 
And on my heart monastic aisles 
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; 
Yet not for all his faith can see 5 
Would I that cowl¨¨d churchman be. 
Why should the vest on him allure  
Which I could not on me endure? 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 
His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 10 
Never from lips of cunning fell 
The thrilling Delphic oracle: 
Out from the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old; 
The litanies of nations came 15 
Like the volcano's tongue of flame  
Up from the burning core below ¡ª 
The canticles of love and woe; 
The hand that rounded Peter's dome  
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome 20 
Wrought in a sad sincerity; 
Himself from God he could not free; 
He builded better than he knew;¡ª 
The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 25 
Of leaves and feathers from her breast? 
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell  
Painting with morn each annual cell? 
Or how the sacred pine tree adds 
To her old leaves new myriads? 30 
Such and so grew these holy piles  
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon  
As the best gem upon her zone; 
And Morning opes with haste her lids 35 
To gaze upon the Pyramids; 
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky  
As on its friends with kindred eye; 
For out of Thought's interior sphere  
These wonders rose to upper air; 40 
And Nature gladly gave them place  
Adopted them into her race  
And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat. 

These temples grew as grows the grass; 45 
Art might obey but not surpass. 
The passive Master lent his hand 
To the vast soul that o'er him planned; 
And the same power that reared the shrine  
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 50 
Ever the fiery Pentecost 
Girds with one flame the countless host  
Trances the heart through chanting choirs  
And through the priest the mind inspires. 

The word unto the prophet spoken 55 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken; 
The word by seers or sibyls told  
In groves of oak or fanes of gold  
Still floats upon the morning wind  
Still whispers to the willing mind. 60 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost. 
I know what say the fathers wise ¡ª 
The Book itself before me lies ¡ª 
Old Chrysostom best Augustine 65 
And he who blent both in his line  
The younger Golden Lips or mines  
Taylor the Shakespeare of divines. 
His words are music in my ear  
I see his cowl¨¨d portrait dear; 70 
And yet for all his faith could see  
I would not this good bishop be. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves:
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 't would win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise. 

 "Ah! don't you remember, 'tis almost December,
And soon will the holidays come;
Oh, 'twill be so funny, I've plenty of money,
I'll buy me a sword and a drum. " 

Thus said little Harry, unwilling to tarry,
Impatient from school to depart; 
But we shall discover, this holiday lover
Knew little what was in his heart. 

For when on returning, he gave up his learning, 
Away from his sums and his books,
Though playthings surrounded, and sweetmeats abounded,
Chagrin still appear'd in his looks. 

Though first they delighted, his toys were now slighted, 
And thrown away out of his sight; 
He spent every morning in stretching and yawning,
Yet went to bed weary at night. 

He had not that treasure which really makes pleasure,
(A secret discover'd by few). 
You'll take it for granted, more playthings he wanted; 
Oh naught was something to do. 

We must have employment to give us enjoyment
And pass the time cheerfully away; 
And study and reading give pleasure, exceeding
The pleasures of toys and of play. 

To school now returning­to study and learning
With eagerness Harry applied; 
He felt no aversion to books or exertion, 
Nor yet for the holidays sigh'd.

 The directions to the lunatic asylum were confusing,
more likely they were the random associations
and confused ramblings of a lunatic.
We arrived three hours late for lunch
and the lunatics were stacked up on their shelves,
quite neatly, I might add, giving credit where credit is due.
The orderlies were clearly very orderly, and they
should receive all the credit that is their due.
When I asked one of the doctors for a corkscrew
he produced one without a moment's hesitation.
And it was a corkscrew of the finest craftsmanship,
very shiny and bright not unlike the doctor himself.
"We'll be conducting our picnic under the great oak
beginning in just a few minutes, and if you'd care
to join us we'd be most honored. However, I understand
you have your obligations and responsibilities,
and if you would prefer to simply visit with us
from time to time, between patients, our invitation
is nothing if not flexible. And, we shan't be the least slighted
or offended in any way if, due to your heavy load,
we are altogether deprived of the pleasure
of exchanging a few anecdotes, regarding the mentally ill,
depraved, diseased, the purely knavish, you in your bughouse,
if you'll pardon my vernacular, O yes, and we in our crackbrain
daily rounds, there are so many gone potty everywhere we roam,
not to mention in one's own home, dead moonstruck.
Well, well, indeed we would have many notes to compare
if you could find the time to join us after your injections."
My invitation was spoken in the evenest tones,
but midway though it I began to suspect I was addressing
an imposter. I returned the corkscrew in a nonthreatening manner.
What, for instance, I asked myself, would a doctor, a doctor of the mind,
be doing with a cordscrew in his pocket?
This was a very sick man, one might even say dangerous.
I began moving away cautiously, never taking my eyes off of him.
His right eyelid was twitching guiltily, or at least anxiously,
and his smock flapping slightly in the wind.
Several members of our party were mingling with the nurses
down by the duck pond, and my grip on the situation
was loosening, the planks in my picnic platform were rotting.
I was thinking about the potato salad in an unstable environment.
A weeping spell was about to overtake me.
I was very close to howling and gnashing the gladiola.
I noticed the great calm of the clouds overhead.
And below, several nurses appeared to me in need of nursing.
The psychopaths were stirring from their naps,
I should say, their postprandial slumbers.
They were lumbering through the pines like inordinately sad moose.
Who could eat liverwurst at a time like this?
But, then again, what's a picnic without pathos?
Lacking a way home, I adjusted the flap in my head and duck-walked
down to the pond and into the pond and began gliding
around in circles, quacking, quacking like a scarf.
Inside the belly of that image I began
recycling like a sorry whim, sincerest regrets
are always best.

 Little Ann and her mother were walking one day
Through London's wide city so fair,
And business obliged them to go by the way
That led them through Cavendish Square. 
And as they pass'd by the great house of a Lord,
A beautiful chariot there came,
To take some most elegant ladies abroad, 
Who straightway got into the same. 

The ladies in feathers and jewels were seen,
The chariot was painted all o'er, 
The footmen behind were in silver and green,
The horses were prancing before. 

Little Ann by her mother walk'd silent and sad,
A tear trickled down from her eye, 
Till her mother said, "Ann, I should be very glad
To know what it is makes you cry. " 

"Mamma," said the child, "see that carriage so fair, 
All cover'd with varnish and gold, 
Those ladies are riding so charmingly there
While we have to walk in the cold. 

"You say GOD is kind to the folks that are good,
But surely it cannot be true; 
Or else I am certain, almost, that He would
Give such a fine carriage to you. " 

"Look there, little girl," said her mother, "and see
What stands at that very coach door;
A poor ragged beggar, and listen how she
A halfpenny tries to implore. 

"All pale is her face, and deep sunk is her eye,
And her hands look like skeleton's bones;
She has got a few rags, just about her to tie,
And her naked feet bleed on the stones. " 

'Dear ladies,' she cries, and the tears trickle down, 
'Relieve a poor beggar, I pray;
I've wander'd all hungry about this wide town,
And not ate a morsel to-day. 

'My father and mother are long ago dead,
My brother sails over the sea, 
And I've scarcely a rag, or a morsel of bread,
As plainly, I'm sure, you may see. 

'A fever I caught, which was terrible bad, 
But no nurse or physic had I; 
An old dirty shed was the house that I had,
And only on straw could I lie. 

'And now that I'm better, yet feeble and faint, 
And famish'd, and naked, and cold,
I wander about with my grievous complaint, 
And seldom get aught but a scold. 

'Some will not attend to my pitiful call,
Some think me a vagabond cheat;
And scarcely a creature relieves me, of all
The thousands that traverse the street. 

'Then ladies, dear ladies, your pity bestow:'­
Just then a tall footman came round,
And asking the ladies which way they would go,
The chariot turn'd off with a bound. 

"Ah! see, little girl," then her mother replied,
"How foolish those murmurs have been;
You have but to look on the contrary side,
To learn both your folly and sin. 

"This poor little beggar is hungry and cold,
No mother awaits her return;
And while such an object as this you behold,
Your heart should with gratitude burn. 

"Your house and its comforts, your food and your friends,
'Tis favour in GOD to confer, 
Have you any claim to the bounty He sends, 
Who makes you to differ from her? 

"A coach, and a footman, and gaudy attire,
Give little true joy to the breast; 
To be good is the thing you should chiefly desire,
And then leave to GOD all the rest. "