Famous Harp Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Harp poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous harp poems. These examples illustrate what a famous harp poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Moore
They may rail at this life -- from the hour I began it
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes
As before me this moment enraptured I...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,
But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,
Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,
Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.
In your strings is hid a music that no...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
WHERE contemplation finds her sacred spring,
Where heav'nly music makes the arches ring,
Where virtue reigns unsully'd and divine,
Where wisdom thron'd, and all the graces shine,
There sits thy spouse amidst the radiant throng,
While praise eternal warbles from her tongue;
There choirs angelic shout her welcome round,
With perfect bliss, and peerless glory crown'd.
While thy dear mate, to flesh no more confin'd,
Exults a blest,...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world
she leans out of the window
and this is what she sees
a wet rose singing to the sun
with a chorus of red bees
she leans out of the window
and laughs for the window is high
she is in it like a bird...Read more of this...
by
Henry David Thoreau
There is a vale which none hath seen,
Where foot of man has never been,
Such as here lives with toil and strife,
An anxious and a sinful life.
There every virtue has its birth,
Ere it descends upon the earth,
And thither every deed returns,
Which in the generous bosom burns.
There love is warm, and youth is...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance;
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train
Landed King Harry.
And taking many a fort,
Furnish'd in warlike sort,
Marcheth towards Agincourt
In happy hour;
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopp'd his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay
With all his power.
Which, in...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Mother of man's time-travelling generations,
Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,
God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,
Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.
Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder
Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.
Angels and Gods, spirit...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
She has no house to lay a guest in--
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.
She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you--
Out on...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Son," said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
"you've need of clothes to cover you,
and not a rag have I.
"There's nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with,
Nor thread to take stitches.
"There's nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman's head
Nobody will buy,"
And she began to cry.
That was in the...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave
Where the first -- where the last of her Patriots lies?
No -- faint though the death-song may fall from his lips,
Though his Harp, like his soul,...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Sing, sweet Harp, oh sing to me
Some song of ancient days,
Whose sounds, in this sad memory,
Long-buried dreams shall raise; --
Some lay that tells of vanish'd fame,
Whose light once round us shone,
Of noble pride, now turn'd to shame,
And hopes for ever gone.
Sing, sad Harp, thus sing to me;
Alike our doom is...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THE WIND blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun’s departing beam
Look’d on the fading yellow woods,
That wav’d o’er Lugar’s winding stream:
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard,
Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewail’d his lord,
Whom Death had all untimely ta’en.
He lean’d him to an ancient aik,
Whose trunk was mould’ring down with years;
His...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I'd rather be the Jester than the Minstrel of the King;
I'd rather jangle cap and bells than twang the stately harp;
I'd rather make his royal ribs with belly-laughter ring,
Than see him sitting in the suds and sulky as a carp.
I'd rather be the Court buffoon than its most high-browed sage:
So you who read, take head, take heed, -
...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
My gentle Harp, once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
And now in tears we meet again.
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken,
But, like those harps whose heavenly skill
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken,
Thou hang'st upon the willows still.
And yet, since last...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Tis believed that this Harp, which I wake now for thee
Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea;
And who often, at eve, through the bright waters roved,
To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved.
But she loved him in vain, for he left her to weep,
And in tears, all the...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.
God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Scott
Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark,
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending;
In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark,
The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending.
Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending,
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy;
Thy numbers sweet with nature’s vespers blending,
With distant echo from the fold...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Come, soft Aeolian harp, while zephyr plays
Along the meek vibration of thy strings,
As twilight's hand her modest mantle brings,
Blending with sober grey, the western blaze!
O! prompt my Phaon's dreams with tend'rest lays,
Ere night o'er shade thee with its humid wings,
While the lorn Philomel his sorrow sings
In leafy cradle, red with parting rays!
Slow let thy dulcet tones on ether glide,
So...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
1. DREAMS
I was an ice baby.
I turned to sky blue.
My tears became two glass beads.
My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl.
They say it was a dream
but I remember that hardening.
My sister at six
dreamt nightly of my death:
"The baby turned to ice.
Someone put her in the refrigerator
and she turned as hard as a Popsicle."
I remember the stink of the liverwurst.
How...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Edain came out of Midhir's hill, and lay
Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,
And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made
Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite
Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,
Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,
Because her hands had been made...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Thy tones are silver melted into sound,
And as I dream
I see no walls around,
But seem to hear
A gondolier
Sing sweetly down some slow Venetian stream.
Italian skies—that I have never seen—
I see above.
(Ah, play again, my queen;
Thy fingers white
Fly swift and light
And weave for me the golden mesh of love.)
Oh, thou dusk sorceress of the dusky eyes
And soft dark hair,
'T is thou...Read more of this...
by
William Allingham
O pale green sea,
With long, pale, purple clouds above -
What lies in me like weight of love ?
What dies in me
With utter grief, because there comes no sign
Through the sun-raying West, or the dim sea-line ?
O salted air,
Blown round the rocky headland still,
What calls me there from cove and hill?
What...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,
As if that soul were fled. --
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,
And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright...Read more of this...
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...
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