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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How readily delight is aroused in her

by Emile Verhaeren
How readily delight is aroused in her, with her eyes of fiery ecstasy, she who is gentle and resigned before life in so simple a fashion.
This evening, how a look surprised her fervour and a word transported her to the pure garden of gladness, where she was at once both queen and servant.
Humble of herself, but aglow with our two...Read more of this...

Here is the Dawn! Rise Thou, O Source of all Delight!

by Omar Khayyam
Here is the Dawn! Rise Thou, O Source of all Delight!
Drink sweetly of the wine and let us listen to the harmonies
of the harp, for the life of those who sleep will
not be long, and of those who are no more, not one will
e'er return....Read more of this...

As Once The Winged Energy Of Delight

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more...Read more of this...

The Voice Of The Ancient Bard

by William Blake
 Youth of delight come hither.
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason.
Dark disputes & artful teazing,
Folly is an endless maze,
Tangled roots perplex her ways,
How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead:
And feel they know not what but care;
And wish to lead others when they should be led...Read more of this...

Tis Anguish grander than Delight

by Emily Dickinson
 'Tis Anguish grander than Delight
'Tis Resurrection Pain --
The meeting Bands of smitten Face
We questioned to, again.

'Tis Transport wild as thrills the Graves
When Cerements let go
And Creatures clad in Miracle
Go up by Two and Two....Read more of this...

My Delight and Thy Delight

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 My delight and thy delight 
Walking, like two angels white, 
In the gardens of the night: 

My desire and thy desire 
Twining to a tongue of fire, 
Leaping live, and laughing higher: 

Thro' the everlasting strife 
In the mystery of life. 


Love, from whom the world begun, 
Hath the secret of the sun. 

Love can tell, and love alone,...Read more of this...

Hymn 101

by Isaac Watts
 Joy in heaven for a repenting sinner.

Luke 15:7,10. 

Who can describe the joys that rise
Through all the courts of Paradise,
To see a prodigal return,
To see an heir of glory born?

With joy the Father doth approve
The fruit of his eternal love;
The Son with joy looks down and sees
The purchase of his agonies.

The Spirit takes delight to view
The holy soul he...Read more of this...

Are Friends Delight or Pain?

by Emily Dickinson
 Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good --

But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad....Read more of this...

Delight -- becomes pictorial --

by Emily Dickinson
 Delight -- becomes pictorial --
When viewed through Pain --
More fair -- because impossible
Than any gain --

The Mountain -- at a given distance --
In Amber -- lies --
Approached -- the Amber flits -- a little --
And That's -- the Skies --...Read more of this...

Delight becomes pictorial

by Emily Dickinson
Delight becomes pictorial
When viewed through pain,--
More fair, because impossible
That any gain.

The mountain at a given distance
In amber lies;
Approached, the amber flits a little,--
And that's the skies!...Read more of this...

Delight In Disorder

by Robert Herrick
 A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;--
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...

The last of Summer is Delight --

by Emily Dickinson
 The last of Summer is Delight --
Deterred by Retrospect.
'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review --
Enchantment's Syndicate.

To meet it -- nameless as it is --
Without celestial Mail --
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil....Read more of this...

They ask but our Delight --

by Emily Dickinson
 They ask but our Delight --
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile....Read more of this...

Lewin and Gynneth

by Mary Darby Robinson
 "WHEN will my troubled soul have rest?"
The beauteous LEWIN cried;
As thro' the murky shade of night
With frantic step she hied. 

"When shall those eyes my GYNNETH'S face,
My GYNNETH'S form survey ?
When shall those longing eyes again
Behold the dawn of day ?" 

Cold are the dews that wet my cheek,
The night-mist damps the ground;
Appalling echoes strike mine ear,
And spectres gleam...Read more of this...

To Lina

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 SHOULD these songs, love, as they fleet,

Chance again to reach thy hand,
At the piano take thy seat,

Where thy friend was wont to stand!

Sweep with finger bold the string,

Then the book one moment see:
But read not! do nought but sing!

And each page thine own will be!

Ah, what grief the song imparts

With its letters, black on white,
That, when breath'd by thee,...Read more of this...

The Doomed -- regard the Sunrise

by Emily Dickinson
 The Doomed -- regard the Sunrise
With different Delight --
Because -- when next it burns abroad
They doubt to witness it --

The Man -- to die -- tomorrow --
Harks for the Meadow Bird --
Because its Music stirs the Axe
That clamors for his head --

Joyful -- to whom the Sunrise
Precedes Enamored -- Day --
Joyful -- for whom the Meadow Bird
Has ought but...Read more of this...

Rather arid delight

by Emily Dickinson
 Rather arid delight
If Contentment accrue
Make an abstemious Ecstasy
Not so good as joy --

But Rapture's Expense
Must not be incurred
With a tomorrow knocking
And the Rent unpaid --...Read more of this...

Delight in Disorder

by Robert Herrick
 A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction--
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher--
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly--
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat--
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility--
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in...Read more of this...

Sobriety doth dry up all delight,

by Omar Khayyam
Sobriety doth dry up all delight,
And drunkenness doth drown my sense outright;
There is a middle state, it is my life,
Not altogether drunk, nor sober quite....Read more of this...

Long time in wine and rose I took delight,

by Omar Khayyam
Long time in wine and rose I took delight,
But then my business never went aright;
Since wine could not accomplish my desire,
I have abandoned and forsworn it quite....Read more of this...

"Lost Delight"

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   After the Hazara War

   I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms,
        Where we two lay together in the spring,
   And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting,
        This year, as last, the water-courses sing.

   That was...Read more of this...

Sonnet 37: As a decrepit father takes delight

by William Shakespeare
 As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crownèd sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store.
So then I...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Lewis Carroll
 Inscribed to a Dear Child:
In Memory of Golden Summer Hours
And Whispers of a Summer Sea 


Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
The tale he loves to tell. 
Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem if you...Read more of this...

Delight is as the flight

by Emily Dickinson
 Delight is as the flight --
Or in the Ratio of it,
As the Schools would say --
The Rainbow's way --
A Skein
Flung colored, after Rain,
Would suit as bright,
Except that flight
Were Aliment --

"If it would last"
I asked the East,
When that Bent Stripe
Struck up my childish
Firmament --
And I, for glee,
Took Rainbows, as the common way,
And empty Skies
The Eccentricity --

And so with Lives --
And...Read more of this...

If that apparent part of life's delight

by Fernando Pessoa
If that apparent part of life's delight

Our tingled flesh-sense circumscribes were seen

By aught save reflex and co-carnal sight,

Joy, flesh and life might prove but a gross screen.

Haply Truth's body is no eyable being,

Appearance even as appearance lies,

Haply our close, dark, vague, warm sense of seeing

Is the choked vision of blindfolded eyes.

Wherefrom what comes to thought's sense of life? Nought.

All is...Read more of this...

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