Famous Leaping Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Twinkle in Her Eyes

...lets,

Tip toe up, haltingly, secretively,

To the gates of her lips,

Why her gaze sparkles and smiles ?

 

Leaping over islands of silence

And wastelands of sealed lip pining,

When the silhouettes of desire

Come waltzing in

To nestle in an intimate moment’s nest,

Why her gaze sparkles and smiles ?

 

Her soul, that Sprite-Princess,

Neither lifts her veil

Nor voices her song

And when her heart’s ballad

Passes through distant, unexpl...Read more of this...
by Amjad, Majeed


Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...rowed from aught the visible world affords
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;
But undulating woods, and silent well,
And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him, as if he and it
Were all that was; only--when his regard
Was raised by intense pensiveness--two eyes,
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, 
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
To beckon him.

Obedient to the light
That shone withi...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...flag of peace quick-folded, and instead, the flag we know, 
Warlike flag of the great Idea. 

(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting; 
I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight—O the hard-contested fight! 
O the cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles! the hurtled balls scream! 

The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys pour incessant from the line; 
Hark! the ringing word, Charge!—now the tussle, ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Astrophel and Stella

...Fearing her beames, take with thee
Strength of liking, rage of longing.

Thinke of that most gratefull time
When my leaping heart will climb,
In thy lips to haue his biding,
There those roses for to kisse,
Which do breathe a sugred blisse,
Opening rubies, pearles diuiding.

Thinke of my most princely pow'r,
Which I blessed shall deuow'r
With my greedy licorous sences,
Beauty, musicke, sweetnesse, loue,
While she doth against me proue
Her strong darts but weake ...Read more of this...
by Sidney, Sir Philip

Endymion: Book I

...For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

 "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather ...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Four Quartets 2: East Coker

...necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the const...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Howl

...ghtmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Impossible To Tell

...ying
In Hebrew, then Yiddish, then Aramaic. He prayed
In Turkish and Egyptian and Old Galician

For nearly three hours, leaping about the coffin
In the candlelight so that his tiny black shoes
Seemed not to touch the floor. With one last prayer

Sobbed in the Spanish of before the Inquisition
He stopped, exhausted, and looked in the dead man's face.
Panting, he raised both arms in a mystic gesture

And said, "Arise and breathe!" And still the body
Lay as before. Impossible to...Read more of this...
by Pinsky, Robert

Lara

...lm disdain, 
That rose to reconcile him with his fate, 
And that escape to death from living hate: 
And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed, 
Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed, 
And questions of his state; he answers not, 
Scarce glances on him as on one forgot, 
And turns to Kaled: — each remaining word, 
They understood not, if distinctly heard; 
His dying tones are in that other tongue, 
To which some strange remembrance wildly clung. 
They spake of other sc...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Love

...ves below,  When o'er the sea-rock's edge we go;  The high crag cannot work me harm,  Nor leaping torrents when they howl;  The babe I carry on my arm,  He saves for me my precious soul;  Then happy lie, for blest am I;  Without me my sweet babe would die.   Then do not fear, my boy! for thee  Bold as a lion I will be;  And I will always be thy guide,  Through ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Ravenna

...face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The evening chimes, the convent's vesper bell,
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours
Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,
And drowned all thoughts of black Ge...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Song of Myself

...e only; 
My messengers continually cruise away, or bring their returns to me. 

I go hunting polar furs and the seal—leaping chasms with a pike-pointed
 staff—clinging to topples of brittle and blue.

I ascend to the foretruck; 
I take my place late at night in the crow’s-nest; 
We sail the arctic sea—it is plenty light enough; 
Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty; 
The enormous masses of ice pass me, and I pass them—the scenery is ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Still I Rise

...thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise....Read more of this...
by Angelou, Maya

The Ballad of the White Horse

...h level and imperial eye;
And Mark, the man from Italy,
Fell in the sea of agony,
And died without a sound.

And Ogier, leaping up alive,
Hurled his huge shield away
Flying, as when a juggler flings
A whizzing plate in play.

And held two arms up rigidly,
And roared to all the Danes:
"Fallen is Rome, yea, fallen
The city of the plains!

"Shall no man born remember,
That breaketh wood or weald,
How long she stood on the roof of the world
As he stood on my shield.

"The new wil...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bells

...
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now- now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Flight Of The Duchess

...ignified,
Just a day before, as he judged most dignified,
In what a pleasure she was to participate,---
And, instead of leaping wide in flashes,
Her eyes just lifted their long lashes,
As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate,
And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought,
But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught,
Of the weight by day and the watch by night,
And much wrong now that used to be right,
So, thanking him, declined the hunting,---
Was cond...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Holy Grail

...ly Grail, 
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive, 
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 
With rosy colours leaping on the wall; 
And then the music faded, and the Grail 
Past, and the beam decayed, and from the walls 
The rosy quiverings died into the night. 
So now the Holy Thing is here again 
Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, 
And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray, 
That so perchance the vision may be seen 
By thee and those, and all the world...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The old pond

...


The silent old pond
a mirror of ancient calm,
a frog-leaps-in splash.


Translated by Dion O'Donnol



old pond
frog leaping
splash


Translated by Cid Corman



Antic pond--
frantic frog jumps in--
gigantic sound.


Translated by Bernard Lionel Einbond 



MAFIA HIT MAN POET: NOTE FOUND PINNED TO LAPEL 
OF DROWNED VICTIM'S DOUBLE-BREASTED SUIT!!! 

'Dere wasa dis frogg
Gone jumpa offa da logg
Now he inna bogg.'

 -- Anonymous


Translated by George M. Young, Jr.



Old po...Read more of this...
by Basho, Matsuo

The Schooner Flight

...gh, to the wind
whatever grief bent them was all the same,
since they were trees with nothing else in mind
but heavenly leaping or to guard a grave;
but we live like our names and you would have
to be colonial to know the difference,
to know the pain of history words contain,
to love those trees with an inferior love,
and to believe: "Those casuarinas bend
like cypresses, their hair hangs down in rain
like sailors' wives. They're classic trees, and we,
if we live like the nam...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

This Much And More

...If my lover were a comet
Hung in air,
I would braid my leaping body
In his hair.

Yea, if they buried him ten leagues
Beneath the loam,
My fingers they would learn to dig
And I’d plunge home!...Read more of this...
by Barnes, Djuna

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