Famous Gladness Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Exchange

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE stones in the streamlet I make my bright pillow,
And open my arms to the swift-rolling billow,

That lovingly hastens to fall on my breast.
Then fickleness soon bids it onwards be flowing;
A second draws nigh, its caresses bestowing,--

And so by a twofold enjoyment I'm blest.

And yet thou art trailing in sorrow and sadness
The moments that life, as it flies, gave...Read more of this...

Psalm 45 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 The glory of Christ, and power of his gospel.

Now be my heart inspired to sing
The glories of my Savior King,
Jesus the Lord; how heav'nly fair
His form! how bright his beauties are!

O'er all the sons of human race
He shines with a superior grace;
Love from his lips divinely flows,
And blessings all his state compose.

Dress thee in arms, most mighty Lord,
Gird on...Read more of this...

It was June in the garden

by Emile Verhaeren
It was June in the garden, our hour and our day, and our eyes looked upon all things with so great a love that the roses seemed to us to open gently, and to see and love us.
The sky was purer than it had ever been: the insects and birds floated in the gold and gladness of an air as...Read more of this...

Christmass

by John Clare
 Christmass is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
Een want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi a holly bough
Tho tramping neath a winters sky
Oer snow track paths and ryhmey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi evergreens
The snow is...Read more of this...

Waiting

by George William Russell
 WHEN the dawn comes forth I wonder
Will our sad, sad hearts awaken,
And the grief we laboured under
From the new-in-joy be shaken?


If the night be long in going,
All our souls will fix in sadness;
And the light of morning glowing
Waken in our eyes no gladness.


All unschooled in mirth we will not
Rouse forgotten joys from sleeping;
And the dawn our pain shall still...Read more of this...

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

by Emma Lazarus
 Here, where the noises of the busy town, 
The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not,
We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
And muse upon the consecrated spot.

No signs of life are here: the very prayers
Inscribed around are in a language dead;
The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent
That an undying radiance was to shed.

What prayers were in this...Read more of this...

Poppies

by Carl Sandburg
 She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in.
In a loose white gown she walks
 and a new child tugs at cords in her body.
Her head to the west at evening when the dew is creeping,
A shudder of gladness runs in her bones and torsal fiber:
She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in....Read more of this...

On The New Year

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 ------
What we sing in company
Soon from heart to heart will fly.
-----

THE Gesellige Lieder, which I have angicisled 
as above, as several of them cannot be called convivial songs, are 
separated by Goethe from his other songs, and I have adhered to 
the same arrangement. The Ergo bibamus is a well-known drinking 
song in Germany, where it enjoys vast popularity.

ON...Read more of this...

The Blue-Flag In The Bog

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 God had called us, and we came;
Our loved Earth to ashes left;
Heaven was a neighbor's house,
Open to us, bereft.

Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
And 'twas God who walked ahead;
Yet I wept along the road,
Wanting my own house instead.

Wept unseen, unheeded cried,
"All you things my eyes have kissed,
Fare you well! We meet no more,
Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

Weary wings that rise...Read more of this...

Dear Harp of my Country

by Thomas Moore
 Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee, 
The cold chain of Silence had hung o'er thee long.
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee, 
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song. 
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness 
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy livliest thrill, 
But, so oft...Read more of this...

The Gladness of Nature

by William Cullen Bryant
 Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, 
When our mother Nature laughs around; 
When even the deep blue heavens look glad, 
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? 

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky; 
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den, 
And the wilding...Read more of this...

New Love New Life

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Written at the time of Goethe's connection 
with Lily.]

HEART! my heart! what means this feeling?

What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o'er me stealing!

I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,

Fled thy peace, thine industry--

Ah, why suffer it to be?

Say, do beauty's graces youthful,

Does this form so fair and...Read more of this...

Cassandra

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Mirth the halls of Troy was filling,
Ere its lofty ramparts fell;
From the golden lute so thrilling
Hymns of joy were heard to swell.
From the sad and tearful slaughter
All had laid their arms aside,
For Pelides Priam's daughter
Claimed then as his own fair bride.

Laurel branches with them bearing,
Troop on troop in bright array
To the temples were repairing,
Owning Thymbrius' sovereign sway.
Through the streets,...Read more of this...

The Man From Eldorado

by Robert William Service
 He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
 In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
 He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
 Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the...Read more of this...

In an Old Farmhouse

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Outside the afterlight's lucent rose
Is smiting the hills and brimming the valleys, 
And shadows are stealing across the snows;
From the mystic gloom of the pineland alleys. 
Glamour of mingled night and day 
Over the wide, white world has sway, 
And through their prisoning azure bars, 
Gaze the calm, cold eyes of the early stars. 

But here, in this long,...Read more of this...

Restless Love

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THROUGH rain, through snow,
Through tempest go!
'Mongst streaming caves,
O'er misty waves,
On, on! still on!
Peace, rest have flown!

Sooner through sadness

I'd wish to be slain,
Than all the gladness

Of life to sustain
All the fond yearning

That heart feels for heart,
Only seems burning

To make them both smart.

How shall I fly?
Forestwards hie?
Vain were all strife!
Bright crown of life.
Turbulent bliss,--
Love, thou art this!

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

The Singing Silences

by George William Russell
 WHILE the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory,
In the lilac-scented stillness let us listen to earth’s story.
All the flowers like moths a-flutter glimmer rich with dusky hues;
Everywhere around us seem to fall from nowhere the sweet dews.
Through the drowsy lull, the murmur, stir of leaf and sleepy hum,
We can feel a gay heart beating, hear a magic...Read more of this...

The world is false, so I'll be false as well,

by Omar Khayyam
The world is false, so I'll be false as well,
And with bright wine, and gladness ever dwell!
They say, «May Allah grant thee penitence!»
He grants it not, and, did he, I'd rebel!...Read more of this...

The still beauty of summer evenings

by Emile Verhaeren
The still beauty of summer evenings on the greenswards where they lie outspread holds out to us, without empty gesture or words, a symbol of rest in gladness.
Young morning and its tricks has gone away with the breezes; noon itself and the velvet skirts of its warm winds, of its heavy winds, no longer sweeps the torrid plain; and this...Read more of this...

Lament for the Makers

by William Dunbar
 I THAT in heill was and gladness 
Am trublit now with great sickness 
And feblit with infirmitie:-- 
 Timor Mortis conturbat me. 

Our plesance here is all vain glory, 
This fals world is but transitory, 
The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee:-- 
 Timor Mortis conturbat me. 

The state of man does change and vary, 
Now sound, now...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Brand

by Robert William Service
 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Friends

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Two good friends had Hiawatha, 
Singled out from all the others, 
Bound to him in closest union, 
And to whom he gave the right hand 
Of his heart, in joy and sorrow; 
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
Straight between them ran the pathway, 
Never grew the grass upon it; 
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, 
Story-tellers, mischief-makers, 
Found...Read more of this...

Life and Art

by Emma Lazarus
 Not while the fever of the blood is strong, 
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less 
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless 
The poet-sould to help and soothe with song. 
Not then she bids his trembling lips express 
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain. 
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain...Read more of this...

Love And Madness

by Thomas Campbell
 Hark ! from the battlements of yonder tower
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour !
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep !

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried !
Oh ! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the...Read more of this...

The Old Huntsman

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed 
A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. 
’Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough 
It cost me, what with my daft management, 
And the mean folk as owed and never paid me, 
And backing losers; and the local bucks 
Egging me on with whiskys while I bragged...Read more of this...

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