Famous Bliss Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Bliss poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bliss poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bliss poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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If Death be Good

by Bliss Carman
 (Sappho LXXIV)
If death be good,
Why do the gods not die?
If life be ill,
Why do the gods still live?
If love be naught,
Why do the gods still love?
If love be all,
What should men do but love?...Read more of this...

The Ships of Saint John

by Bliss Carman
 Where are the ships I used to know,
That came to port on the Fundy tide
Half a century ago,
In beauty and stately pride?
In they would come past the beacon light,
With the sun on gleaming sail and spar,
Folding their wings like birds in flight
From countries strange and far.
Schooner and brig and barkentine,
I watched them slow as the sails were furled,
And wondered...Read more of this...

Mrs. Charles Bliss

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him
For the sake of the children,
And Judge Somers advised him the same.
So we stuck to the end of the path.
But two of the children thought he was right,
And two of the children thought I was right.
And the two who sided with him blamed me,
And the two who sided with me blamed him,
And...Read more of this...

Is Bliss then such Abyss

by Emily Dickinson
 Is Bliss then, such Abyss,
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?

I'd rather suit my foot
Than save my Boot --
For yet to buy another Pair
Is possible,
At any store --

But Bliss, is sold just once.
The Patent lost
None buy it any more --
Say, Foot, decide the point --
The Lady cross, or not?
Verdict for Boot!...Read more of this...

Low Tide on Grand Pré

by Bliss Carman
 The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.
And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream--

A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of...Read more of this...

By the Aurelian Wall

by Bliss Carman
 In Memory of John Keats
By the Aurelian Wall,
Where the long shadows of the centuries fall
From Caius Cestius' tomb,
A weary mortal seeking rest found room
For quiet burial,
Leaving among his friends
A book of lyrics.
Such untold amends
A traveller might make
In a strange country, bidden to partake
Before he farther wends;

Who slyly should bestow
The foreign reed-flute they had seen him blow
And finger cunningly,
On one...Read more of this...

The Bliss Of Sorrow

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 NEVER dry, never dry,

Tears that eternal love sheddeth!
How dreary, how dead doth the world still appear,
When only half-dried on the eye is the tear!

Never dry, never dry,

Tears that unhappy love sheddeth!

1789.*...Read more of this...

White Nassau

by Bliss Carman
 There is fog upon the river, there is mirk upon the town;
You can hear the groping ferries as they hoot each other down;
From the Battery to Harlem there's seven miles of slush,
Through looming granite canyons of glitter, noise, and rush.
Are you sick of phones and tickers and crazing cable gongs,
Of the theatres, the hansoms, and the breathless Broadway throngs,
Of...Read more of this...

Why

by Bliss Carman
 FOR a name unknown,
Whose fame unblown
Sleeps in the hills
For ever and aye;

For her who hears
The stir of the years
Go by on the wind
By night and day;

And heeds no thing
Of the needs of spring,
Of autumn's wonder
Or winter's chill;

For one who sees
The great sun freeze,
As he wanders a-cold
From hill to hill;

And all her heart
Is a woven part
Of the flurry and drift
Of...Read more of this...

Behind the Arras

by Bliss Carman
 I like the old house tolerably well, 
Where I must dwell 
Like a familiar gnome; 
And yet I never shall feel quite at home. 
I love to roam. 
Day after day I loiter and explore 
From door to door; 
So many treasures lure 
The curious mind. What histories obscure 
They must immure! 

I hardly know which room I care...Read more of this...

Go, choose bliss, if you are wise, and finally you may

by Omar Khayyam
Go, choose bliss, if you are wise, and finally you may
be able to drink wine from the hand of the drinkers of
eternity, but you are one of the ignorant and joy is not
in you, it is not given to every ignorant one to taste
the sweets that ignorance gives.
387...Read more of this...

Earth Voices

by Bliss Carman
 I
I heard the spring wind whisper
Above the brushwood fire,
"The world is made forever
Of transport and desire.
"I am the breath of being,
The primal urge of things;
I am the whirl of star dust,
I am the lift of wings.
"I am the splendid impulse
That comes before the thought,
The joy and exaltation
Wherein the life is caught.

"Across the sleeping furrows
I call the buried seed,
And blade...Read more of this...

Bliss is the plaything of the child --

by Emily Dickinson
 Bliss is the plaything of the child --
The secret of the man
The sacred stealth of Boy and Girl
Rebuke it if we can...Read more of this...

A Song before Sailing

by Bliss Carman
 Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this old city by the sea
With news for me!
Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!
I am too sick at heart to war
With failure any more.
Thy chill is in my bones;
The moonlight on the stones
Is pale, and palpable, and cold;
I am as one grown old.

I call from room to...Read more of this...

The Vagabonds

by Bliss Carman
 We are the vagabonds of time, 
And rove the yellow autumn days, 
When all the roads are gray with rime 
And all the valleys blue with haze. 
We came unlooked for as the wind 
Trooping across the April hills, 
When the brown waking earth had dreams 
Of summer in the Wander Kills. 
How far afield we joyed to fare,...Read more of this...

I Loved Thee Atthis in the Long Ago

by Bliss Carman
 (Sappho XXIII)
I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,
When the great oleanders were in flower
In the broad herded meadows full of sun.
And we would often at the fall of dusk
Wander together by the silver stream,
When the soft grass-heads were all wet with dew
And purple-misted in the fading light.
And joy I knew and sorrow at thy voice,
And the superb magnificence...Read more of this...

Rivers of Canada

by Bliss Carman
 O all the little rivers that run to Hudson's Bay,
They call me and call me to follow them away.
Missinaibi, Abitibi, Little Current--where they run
Dancing and sparkling I see them in the sun.
I hear the brawling rapid, the thunder of the fall,
And when I think upon them I cannot stay at all.
At the far end of the carry, where the...Read more of this...

The Ships of Yule

by Bliss Carman
 When I was just a little boy,
Before I went to school,
I had a fleet of forty sail
I called the Ships of Yule;
Of every rig, from rakish brig
And gallant barkentine,
To little Fundy fishing boats
With gunwales painted green.
They used to go on trading trips
Around the world for me,
For though I had to stay on shore
My heart was on the sea.

They stopped...Read more of this...

Veni Creator

by Bliss Carman
 I

LORD of the grass and hill, 
Lord of the rain, 
White Overlord of will, 
Master of pain, 

I who am dust and air 
Blown through the halls of death, 
Like a pale ghost of prayer,— 
I am thy breath. 

Lord of the blade and leaf, 
Lord of the bloom, 
Sheer Overlord of grief, 
Master of doom, 

Lonely as wind...Read more of this...

I think to Live -- may be a Bliss

by Emily Dickinson
 I think to Live -- may be a Bliss
To those who dare to try --
Beyond my limit to conceive --
My lip -- to testify --

I think the Heart I former wore
Could widen -- till to me
The Other, like the little Bank
Appear -- unto the Sea --

I think the Days -- could every one
In Ordination stand --
And Majesty -- be...Read more of this...

The Bliss Of Ignorance

by Robert William Service
 When Jack took Nell into his arms
He knew he acted ill,
And thought as he enjoyed her charms
Of his fiancée Jill.
"Poor dear," he sighed, "she dreams of me,
I shouldn't act like this;
But after all, she cannot see,
And ignorance is bliss."

Yet Jill at that same moment was
In Fred's embrace close caught,
And just a little sad because
Of sweetheart Jack she thought.
"Poor dear,"...Read more of this...

Lord of my Hearts Elation

by Bliss Carman
 Lord of my heart's elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!
Bear up, bear out, bear onward
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own,—
As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.

I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command,—
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind's strong...Read more of this...

The Winter Scene

by Bliss Carman
 I
The rutted roads are all like iron; skies
Are keen and brilliant; only the oak-leaves cling
In the bare woods, or the hardy bitter-sweet;
Drivers have put their sheepskin jackets on;
And all the ponds are sealed with sheeted ice
That rings with stroke of skate and hockey-stick,
Or in the twilight cracks with running whoop.
Bring in the logs of oak and hickory,
And make an...Read more of this...

The Heart of Night

by Bliss Carman
 When all the stars are sown 
Across the night-blue space, 
With the immense unknown, 
In silence face to face. 
We stand in speechless awe 
While Beauty marches by, 
And wonder at the Law 
Which wears such majesty. 
How small a thing is man 
In all that world-sown vast, 
That he should hope or plan 
Or dream his dream could...Read more of this...

Now that your roses bloom with flowers of bliss,

by Omar Khayyam
Now that your roses bloom with flowers of bliss,
To grasp your goblets be not so remiss,
Drink while you may! Time is a treacherous foe,
You may not see another day like this....Read more of this...

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