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Famous Caress Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...the guarded wit,
And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp death
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

And others came... Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phanta...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe



...filings of lines,
touch them
 with respect,
 as you would
some antique
 yet awesome weapon.

It’s no habit of mine
 to caress
 the ear
 with words;
a maiden’s ear
 curly-ringed
will not crimson
 when flicked by smut.

In parade deploying
 the armies of my pages,
I shall inspect
 the regiments in line.

Heavy as lead,
 my verses at attention stand,
ready for death
 and for immortal fame.

The poems are rigid,
 pressing muzzle
to muzzle their gaping
 pointed titles.

The favor...Read more of this...
by Mayakovsky, Vladimir
...away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise....Read more of this...
by Walker, Alice
...need.


Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.


Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise. ...Read more of this...
by Walker, Alice
...es.
 The sea howl
And the sea yelp, are different voices
Often together heard: the whine in the rigging,
The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,
The distant rote in the granite teeth,
And the wailing warning from the approaching headland
Are all sea voices, and the heaving groaner
Rounded homewards, and the seagull:
And under the oppression of the silent fog
The tolling bell
Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried
Ground swell, a time
Older than the time...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)



...steeped in lassitude,
Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers
And artful eyelash of the androgynous.
The hovering notes caress the night
Mellowed deep indigo ?still they play.

Departures linger. Absences do not
Deplete the tavern. They hang over the haze
As exhalations from receded shores. Soon,
Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn
The notes hold sway, smoky
Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.

This music's plaint forgives, redeems
The deafness of the wor...Read more of this...
by Soyinka, Wole
...And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
Grew, like a lusty flower in June's caress.

X.
Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close, and share
The inward fragrance of each other's heart.
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;
He with light steps went up a western hill,
And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.

XI.
All cl...Read more of this...
by Keats, John
...and all her charms!" 
How beautiful she is! How fair 
She lies within those arms, that press 
Her form with many a soft caress 
Of tenderness and watchful care! 
Sail forth into the sea, O ship! 
Through wind and wave, right onward steer! 
The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 
Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 
Sail forth into the sea of life, 
O gentle, loving, trusting wife, 
And safe from all adversity 
Upon the bosom of that sea 
Thy comings and thy goings be! 
For gen...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...th a bright flower-like shoe that gems the sod. 

The swarms that hum about her collar-bones 
As the lascivious streams caress the stones, 
Conceal from every scornful jest that flies, 
Her gloomy beauty; and her fathomless eyes 

Are made of shade and void; with flowery sprays 
Her skull is wreathed artistically, and sways, 
Feeble and weak, on her frail vertebrae. 
O charm of nothing decked in folly! they 

Who laugh and name you a Caricature, 
They see not, they whom flesh...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles
...upland village wander home,
Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.

O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress,
Youth, from thy bosom welled their passionate lays
Sweet opportunity for happiness
So brief, so passing beautiful---O days,
When to the heart's divine indulgences
All earth in smiling ministration pays
Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over,
What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!

The wake of color that follows her when May...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan
...s the strife
That neither spares nor speaks for life!
Ah! fondly youthful hearts can press,
To seize and share the dear caress;
But love itself could never pant
For all that beauty sighs to grant
With half the fervour hate bestows
Upon the last embrace of foes,
When grappling in the fight they fold
Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold:
Friends meet to part; love laughs at faith;
True foes, once met, are joined till death!


With sabre shivered to the hilt,
Yet dripping...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...s all fulfilled with gratefulness, 
And she, my namesake of the hands, that healed 
Thy hurt and heart with unguent and caress-- 
Well--can I wish her any huger wrong 
Than having known thee? her too hast thou left 
To pine and waste in those sweet memories. 
O were I not my Mark's, by whom all men 
Are noble, I should hate thee more than love.' 

And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied, 
`Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well. 
Did I love her? the name at ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...easure I discern'd, 
Like those blind motions of the Spring, 
That show the year is turn'd. 

"Thrice-happy he that may caress 
The ringlet's waving balm--- 
The cushions of whose touch may press 
The maiden's tender palm. 

"I, rooted here among the groves 
But languidly adjust 
My vapid vegetable loves 
With anthers and with dust: 

"For ah! my friend, the days were brief 
Whereof the poets talk, 
When that, which breathes within the leaf, 
Could slip its bark and walk. 

"...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
"Or the soft note in which his dear lament
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
That turned his weary slumber to content.--
"So knew I in that light's severe excess
The presence of that shape which on the stream
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
"More dimly than a day appearing dream,
The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep
A light from Heaven whose half extinguished beam
"Through the sick day in which we wake to weep
Glimme...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...Khem,
The Conjuration used of them.
Whoso shall speak it, let him die,
His bowels rotting inwardly,
Save he uncover and caress
The God that lighteth his liesse....Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister
...teaching,
Into a world of men— at seven years old;
Into a world where a mother's hands vainly reaching
Will never again caress and comfort and hold.

XLIII 
My father came over now and then 
To look at the boy and talk to me, 
Never staying long, 
For the urge was strong 
To get back to his yawl and the summer sea. 
He came like a nomad passing by, 
Hands in his pockets, hat over one eye, 
Teasing every one great and small 
With a blank straight face and a Yankee drawl; 
Teas...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer
...aery frail 
That the spiders wove to hide 
Blushes of the sylvan bride 
Earth, that trembled with delight 
At the male caress of Night. 

Velvet soft the wizard trod 
To the Sabbath of his God. 
With his naked feet he made 
Starry blossoms in the glade, 
Softly, softly, as he went 
To the sombre sacrament, 
Stealthy stepping to the tryst 
In his gown of amethyst. 

Earlier yet his soul had come 
To the Hill of Martyrdom, 
Where the charred and crooked stake 
Like a black env...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister
...te, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream....Read more of this...
by Borges, Jorge Luis
...fortune's queen, defend you, 
Lotus-born like you, and send you 
Balmy moons of love to bless you, 
Gentle joy-winds to caress you. 
Lotus-maiden, may you be 
Fragrant of all ecstasy.

Ranadheera

Little lord of battle, hail 
In your newly-tempered mail! 
Learn to conquer, learn to fight 
In the foremost flanks of right, 
Like Valmiki's heroes bold, 
Rubies girt in epic gold. 
Lord of battle, may you be, 
Lord of love and chivalry.

Lilamani

Limpid jewel of delight 
Severed ...Read more of this...
by Naidu, Sarojini
...No one was dearer to me, no one,
No one left me this bereft,
Not even he who betrayed me to torment,
Not even he who caressed, then left.



x x x

No, my prince, I am not the one
On whom you'd rather lay your eyes,
And for long these lips of mine
Do not kiss, but prophesize.

Do not think I'm in delirium
Or with boredom I do whine
Loudly I speak of pain:
It's the very trade of mine.

And I know how to teach,
That the unexpected happened,
How to tame fo...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry