Famous Delight Poems by Famous Poets

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

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As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...nology,
The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong’d, 
The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity, good temper, and
 open-handedness—the whole composite make, 
The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness, 
The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid movement of the population, 
The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging,
Wharf-hemm’d cities, railroad and steamboat ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt


Beowulf (Modern English)

...fe itself
in all kinds of creatures which quickly scurry about. (ll. 86-98)

So these noble warriors lodged in their delights
blissfully — until their lonely opponent
made evil upon them, the fiend from hell.
That ferocious spirit was named Grendel,
the notorious border-strider, who held the moors,
the swampy stronghold, the lair of water-monsters,
an unhappy creature, keeping them a long while,
since the Shaper had condemned him
as the kin of Cain—that killing had...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Dickinson Poems by Number

...ed, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone—

1027

My Heart upon a little Plate
Her Palate to delight
A Berry or a Bun, would be,
Might it an Apricot!

1129

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

1705

Volcanoes be in Sicily
And South ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...hine
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards with apples
She, too, would bring to her husband's house delight and abundance,
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children.



II

Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer,
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.
Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound,
Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands,
Harvests were gathered...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Howl

...mnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, ca...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen


Inferno (English)

...uered. Love, in gentle heart 
 So quick to take dominion, overthrew 
 Him with my own fair body, and overbore 
 Me with delight to please him. Love, which gives 
 No pardon to the loved, so strongly in me 
 Was empired, that its rule, as here ye see, 
 Endureth, nor the bitter blast contrives 
 To part us. Love to one death led us. The mode 
 Afflicts me, shrinking, still. The place of Cain 
 Awaits our slayer." 
 They ceased, and I my head 
 Bowed down, and made no answer, t...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Lara

...s so still, so soft in earth and air, 
You scarce would start to meet a spirit there; 
Secure that nought of evil could delight 
To walk in such a scene, on such a night! 
It was a moment only for the good: 
So Lara deem'd, nor longer there he stood, 
But turn'd in silence to his castle-gate; 
Such scene his soul no more could contemplate. 
Such scene reminded him of other days, 
Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze, 
Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Love

...  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 Ruin'd Tower.   The Moonshin...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Ravenna

...se murmur of the wintry seas,
And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright; -
I wandered through the wood in wild delight,
Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet,
Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,
And small birds sang on every twining spray.
O waving trees, O forest liberty!
Within your haunts at least a man is free,
And half forgets the weary world of strife:
The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life
Wa...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Song of Myself

..., a few embraces, a reaching around of arms; 
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag; 
The delight alone, or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and
 hill-sides;
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and
 meeting the sun. 

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth
 much? 
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? 
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Four Ages of Man

...17 When Infancy was past, my Childishness
2.18 Did act all folly that it could express.
2.19 My silliness did only take delight,
2.20 In that which riper age did scorn and slight,
2.21 In Rattles, Bables, and such toyish stuff.
2.22 My then ambitious thoughts were low enough.
2.23 My high-born soul so straitly was confin'd
2.24 That its own worth it did not know nor mind.
2.25 This little house of flesh did spacious count,
2.26 Through ignorance, all troubles did surmount,
2....Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Growth of Love

...e lips of those that love you well.
'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of hell,
Each with the special grace of your delight:
Ye are the world's creators, and thro' might
Of everlasting love ye did excel. 
Now ye are starry names, above the storm
And war of Time and nature's endless wrong
Ye flit, in pictured truth and peaceful form,
Wing'd with bright music and melodious song,--
The flaming flowers of heaven, making May-dance
In dear Imagination's rich pleasance. 

20
The...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Holy Grail

...nowing every honest face of theirs 
As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, 
And every homely secret in their hearts, 
Delight myself with gossip and old wives, 
And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, 
And mirthful sayings, children of the place, 
That have no meaning half a league away: 
Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, 
Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, 
Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, 
Yea, even in their hens and in their ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Hunting Of The Snark

...outer strife,
 Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
 Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
 Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
 The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
 Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
 Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!


PREFACE


If--and the thi...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The Idiot Boy

...kes the green bough in his hand.   And Betty o'er and o'er has told  The boy who is her best delight,  Both what to follow, what to shun,  What do, and what to leave undone,  How turn to left, and how to right.   And Betty's most especial charge,  Was, "Johnny! Johnny! mind that you  Come home again, nor stop at all,  Come home again, whate'er befal,  My Johnny do...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Knights Tale

...ay
That he n'is clad, and ready for to ride
With hunt and horn, and houndes him beside.
For in his hunting hath he such delight,
That it is all his joy and appetite
To be himself the greate harte's bane* *destruction
For after Mars he serveth now Diane.
Clear was the day, as I have told ere this,
And Theseus, with alle joy and bliss,
With his Hippolyta, the faire queen,
And Emily, y-clothed all in green,
On hunting be they ridden royally.
And to the grove, that stood there fa...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...rgy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is
the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
Energy is Eternal Delight
_______________________________________

PLATE 5

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough
to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place &
governs the unwilling.
And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive till it is
only the shadow of desire.
The history of this is written in Paradise Lost. & the Governo...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Triumph of Life

...end her
"Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow
Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
That whispered with delight to be their pillow.--
"As one enamoured is upborne in dream
O'er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist
To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
"Partly to tread the waves with feet which kist
The dancing foam, partly to glide along
The airs that roughened the moist amethyst,
"Or the slant morning beams that fell among
The trees, or the soft shadows of ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Touched by An Angel

...We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the ...Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

White Flock

...pon the northern stone sits she
And calmly looks upon the road.

I felt the gloomy, dusky fear
Before this woman of delight
As on her shoulders played alone
The rays of miserable light.

And how could I forgive her yet
Your shining praise by love deluded
Look, she is happily in sorrow,
And in such elegance denuded.



x x x

In the sleep to me is given
Our last eden of stars up high
City of clean water towers,
Golden Bakchisarai

There behind a colored...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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