10 Best Famous Uplifts Poems

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

• All Famous Uplifts Poems

 Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence 
Behold the Forms of nature. They discern 
Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities 
Which mortals lack or indirectly learn. 
Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying, 
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear, 
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal 
Huge Principles appear.

The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of 
Arboreal life, how from earth's salty lap 
The solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness 
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;

But never an angel knows the knife-edged severance 
Of sun from shadow where the trees begin, 
The blessed cool at every pore caressing us 
-An angel has no skin.

They see the Form of Air; but mortals breathing it 
Drink the whole summer down into the breast. 
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing 
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest. 
The tremor on the rippled pool of memory 
That from each smell in widening circles goes, 
The pleasure and the pang --can angels measure it? 
An angel has no nose.

The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes 
On death, and why, they utterly know; but not 
The hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries. 
The ripe peach from the southern wall still hot 
Full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate 
Half-lyric lamb, a new loaf's billowy curves, 
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.

Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery 
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see; 
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity 
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be. 
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior, 
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares 
With living men some secrets in a privacy 
Forever ours, not theirs.

 I

A dream of interlinking hands, of feet 
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof 
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet, 
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof. 
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow 
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms 
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow 
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms. 
Hark to the music! How beneath the strain 
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs 
One fundamental chord of constant pain, 
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs. 
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice, 
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice. 


II

Who shall proclaim the golden fable false 
Of Orpheus' miracles? This subtle strain 
Above our prose-world's sordid loss and gain 
Lightly uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz, 
The lyric prelude, the nocturnal song 
Of love and languor, varied visions rise, 
That melt and blend to our enchanted eyes. 
The Polish poet who sleeps silenced long, 
The seraph-souled musician, breathes again 
Eternal eloquence, immortal pain. 
Revived the exalted face we know so well, 
The illuminated eyes, the fragile frame, 
Slowly consuming with its inward flame, 
We stir not, speak not, lest we break the spell. 


III

A voice was needed, sweet and true and fine 
As the sad spirit of the evening breeze, 
Throbbing with human passion, yet devine 
As the wild bird's untutored melodies. 
A voice for him 'neath twilight heavens dim, 
Who mourneth for his dead, while round him fall 
The wan and noiseless leaves. A voice for him 
Who sees the first green sprout, who hears the call 
Of the first robin on the first spring day. 
A voice for all whom Fate hath set apart, 
Who, still misprized, must perish by the way, 
Longing with love, for that they lack the art 
Of their own soul's expression. For all these 
Sing the unspoken hope, the vague, sad reveries. 


IV

Then Nature shaped a poet's heart--a lyre 
From out whose chords the lightest breeze that blows 
Drew trembling music, wakening sweet desire. 
How shall she cherish him? Behold! she throws 
This precious, fragile treasure in the whirl 
Of seething passions; he is scourged and stung, 
Must dive in storm-vext seas, if but one pearl 
Of art or beauty therefrom may be wrung. 
No pure-browed pensive nymph his Muse shall be, 
An amazon of thought with sovereign eyes, 
Whose kiss was poison, man-brained, worldy-wise, 
Inspired that elfin, delicate harmony. 
Rich gain for us! But with him is it well? 
The poet who must sound earth, heaven, and hell!

 1911

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale --
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations-worm and savage otherwise, --
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger --- Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue -- to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity -- must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions -- not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unchained to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions -- in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! --
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges -- even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons -- even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish -- like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it cames that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare nat leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice -- which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern -- shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

 The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep; 
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! 
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold 
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep 
The nightingale is singing from the steep; 
It is midsummer, but the air is cold; 
Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold 
A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep. 
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, 
On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name 
Was writ in water." And was this the meed 
Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write: 
"The smoking flax before it burst to flame 
Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."

 Now on the hill 
The fitful wind is so still 
That never a wimpling mist uplifts,
Nor a trembling leaf drop-laden stirs; 
From the ancient firs 
Aroma of balsam drifts, 
And the silent places are filled 
With elusive odors distilled 
By the rain from asters empearled and frilled, 
And a wild wet savor that dwells 
Far adown in tawny fallows and bracken dells. 

Then with a rush, 
Breaking the beautiful hush 
Where the only sound was the lisping, low 
Converse of raindrops, or the dear sound 
Close to the ground, 
That grasses make when they grow, 
Comes the wind in a gay, 
Rollicking, turbulent way, 
To winnow each bough and toss each spray, 
Piping and whistling in glee 
With the vibrant notes of a merry minstrelsy. 

The friendly rain 
Sings many a haunting strain, 
Now of gladness and now of dole, 
Anon of the glamor and the dream 
That ever seem 
To wait on a pilgrim soul; 
Yea, we can hear 
The grief of an elder year, 
And laughter half-forgotten and dear; 
In the wind and the rain we find 
Fellowship meet for each change of mood or mind.

 Goldbrown upon the sated flood
The rockvine clusters lift and sway;
Vast wings above the lambent waters brood
Of sullen day.

A waste of waters ruthlessly
Sways and uplifts its weedy mane
Where brooding day stares down upon the sea
In dull disdain.

Uplift and sway, O golden vine,
Your clustered fruits to love's full flood,
Lambent and vast and ruthless as is thine
Incertitude!

 The sun strikes down with a blinding glare; 
The skies are blue and the plains are wide, 
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare 
By Walgett out on the Barwon side -- 
The Barwon River that wanders down 
In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town. 
There came a stranger -- a "Cockatoo" -- 
The word means farmer, as all men know, 
Who dwell in the land where the kangaroo 
Barks loud at dawn, and the white-eyed crow 
Uplifts his song on the stock-yard fence 
As he watches the lambkins passing hence. 

The sunburnt stranger was gaunt and brown, 
But it soon appeared that he meant to flout 
The iron law of the country town, 
Which is -- that the stranger has got to shout: 
"If he will not shout we must take him down," 
Remarked the yokels of Walgett Town. 

They baited a trap with a crafty bait, 
With a crafty bait, for they held discourse 
Concerning a new chum who there of late 
Had bought such a thoroughly lazy horse; 
They would wager that no one could ride him down 
The length of the city of Walgett Town. 

The stranger was born on a horse's hide; 
So he took the wagers, and made them good 
With his hard-earned cash -- but his hopes they died, 
For the horse was a clothes-horse, made of wood! -- 
'Twas a well-known horse that had taken down 
Full many a stranger in Walgett Town. 

The stranger smiled with a sickly smile -- 
'Tis a sickly smile that the loser grins -- 
And he said he had travelled for quite a while 
A-trying to sell some marsupial skins. 
"And I thought that perhaps, as you've took me down, 
You would buy them from me, in Walgett Town!" 

He said that his home was at Wingalee, 
At Wingalee, where he had for sale 
Some fifty skins and would guarantee 
They were full-sized skins, with the ears and tail 
Complete; and he sold them for money down 
To a venturesome buyer in Walgett Town. 

Then he smiled a smile as he pouched the pelf, 
"I'm glad that I'm quit of them, win or lose: 
You can fetch them in when it suits yourself, 
And you'll find the skins -- on the kangaroos!" 
Then he left -- and the silence settled down 
Like a tangible thing upon Walgett Town.

 The wind is rising on the sea, 
The windy white foam-dancers leap; 
And the sea moans uneasily, 
And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep. 

Ridge after rocky ridge uplifts, 
Wild hands, and hammers at the land, 
Scatters in liquid dust, and drifts 
To death among the dusty sand. 

On the horizon's nearing line, 
Where the sky rests, a visible wall, 
Grey in the offing, I divine, 
The sails that fly before the squall.

 The Dandelion's pallid tube
Astonishes the Grass,
And Winter instantly becomes
An infinite Alas --

The tube uplifts a signal Bud
And then a shouting Flower, --
The Proclamation of the Suns
That sepulture is o'er.

 I never thought that Bill could say
 A proper prayer;
'Twas more in his hard-bitten way
 To cuss and swear;
Yet came the night when Baby Ted
 Was bitter ill,
I tip-toed to his tiny bed,
 And there was Bill.

Aye, down upon his bended knees
 I heard him cry:
"O God, don't take my kiddy, please!
 Don't let him die!"
Then softly so he would not see,
 I shrank away:
He would have been so shamed for me
 To see him pray.

Men-folk are *****: Bill acts up tough,
 Yet how it's odd,
When things are looking downright rough
 He tunes to God.
"The Parson and the Priest be darned!"
 I've heard him say:
Yet when his baby is concerned
 He's quick to pray.

Maybe it's gentle parent-hood
 That gives us grace,
And in its sacrificial mood
 Uplifts the race.
Of sentiment, all self above,
 That goodness sums
I think the saving best is Love
 For little ones.