Famous Mystical Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Whispers of Heavenly Death

by Walt Whitman
 WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; 
Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals; 
Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; 
Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; 
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses; 
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing; 
With, at...Read more of this...

Avis

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 With a golden rolling sound 
Booming came a bell,
From the aery in the tower
Eagles fell;
So with regal wings 
Hurled, and gleaming sound and power, 
Sprang the fatal spell.

Ten a storm of burnished doves
Gleaming from the cote
Flurried by the almonry
O'er the moat,--
Fell and soared and fell
With the arc and iris eye
Burning breast and throat.

Avis heard the beaten bell
Break the quiet...Read more of this...

Sunday Morning

by Wallace Stevens
1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide...Read more of this...

Lullaby

by Louise Gluck
 Sleep, pretty lady, the night is enfolding you;
Drift, and so lightly, on crystalline streams.
Wrapped in its perfumes, the darkness is holding you;
Starlight bespangles the way of your dreams.
Chorus the nightingales, wistfully amorous;
Blessedly quiet, the blare of the day.
All the sweet hours may your visions be glamorous-
Sleep, pretty lady, as long as you may.

Sleep, pretty lady, the night shall be...Read more of this...

The Phantom Kiss

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
One night in my room, still and beamless,
With will and with thought in eclipse,
I rested in sleep that was dreamless;
When softly there fell on my lips
A touch, as of lips that were pressing
Mine own with the message of bliss—
A sudden, soft, fleeting caressing,
A breath like a maiden's first kiss.
I woke-and the scoffer may doubt me—
I peered in surprise through the...Read more of this...

O Glorious France

by Edgar Lee Masters
 You have become a forge of snow-white fire,
A crucible of molten steel, O France!
Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawn
And fade in light for you, O glorious France!
They pass through meteor changes with a song
Which to all islands and all continents
Says life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame,
Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor child,
Nor love, nor youth's...Read more of this...

We Are As The Flute

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.  We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee,
O thou whose qualities are comely! Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain...Read more of this...

The Voice of Age

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 She'd look upon us, if she could, 
As hard as Rhadamanthus would; 
Yet one may see,—who sees her face, 
Her crown of silver and of lace, 
Her mystical serene address
Of age alloyed with loveliness,— 
That she would not annihilate 
The frailest of things animate. 

She has opinions of our ways, 
And if we’re not all mad, she says,—
If our...Read more of this...

Picture-Writing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In those days said Hiawatha,
"Lo! how all things fade and perish!
From the memory of the old men
Pass away the great traditions,
The achievements of the warriors,
The adventures of the hunters,
All the wisdom of the Medas,
All the craft of the Wabenos,
All the marvellous dreams and visions
Of the Jossakeeds, the Prophets!
"Great men die and are forgotten,
Wise men speak; their words of wisdom
Perish...Read more of this...

The Metamorphosis Of Plants

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THOU art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold 
union

Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another

Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could...Read more of this...

Nephelidia

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float,
Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine,
These that we feel in the blood of our blushes...Read more of this...

The Tropics in New York

by Claude McKay
 Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Set in the window, bringing memories
Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
A wave of longing through my body...Read more of this...

The Beggars Valentine

by Vachel Lindsay
 Kiss me and comfort my heart 
Maiden honest and fine. 
I am the pilgrim boy 
Lame, but hunting the shrine; 

Fleeing away from the sweets, 
Seeking the dust and rain, 
Sworn to the staff and road, 
Scorning pleasure and pain; 

Nevertheless my mouth 
Would rest like a bird an hour 
And find in your curls a nest 
And find...Read more of this...

Confused and Distraught

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Again I am raging,
I am in such a state by your soul that every
bond you bind, I break, by your soul.
I am like heaven, like the moon, like a candle by your glow;
I am all reason, all love, all soul, by your soul. My joy is of your doing, my hangover of your thorn;
whatever side you turn your...Read more of this...

Reason says Love says

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Reason says, “I will beguile him with the tongue;”
Love says, “Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul.”
The soul says to the heart, “Go, do not laugh at me and yourself. What is there that is not his, that I may beguile him thereby?” 

One Whisper of the Beloved by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

Lovers share a sacred decree – 
to seek the Beloved.
They roll head over heels,
rushing toward the Beautiful One
like a torrent of water. In truth, everyone is a shadow of the Beloved – 
Our seeking is His seeking,
Our words are His words. At times we flow toward the Beloved
like a dancing stream.
At times we are still water
held in His pitcher.
At times...Read more of this...

In the Rangitaki Valley

by Katherine Mansfield
 Valley of waving broom,
O lovely, lovely light,
O hear of the world, red-gold!
Breast high in the blossom I stand;
It beats about me like waves
Of a magical, golden sea

The barren heart of the world
Alive at the kiss of the sun,
The yellow mantle of Summer
Flung over a laughing land,
Warm with the warmth of her body
Sweet with the kiss of her breath

O valley...Read more of this...

Icicles Round A Tree In Dumfriesshire

by Ruth Padel
 We're talking different kinds of vulnerability here.

These icicles aren't going to last for ever 

Suspended in the ultra violet rays of a Dumfries sun.

But here they hang, a frozen whirligig of lightning,

And the famous American sculptor 

Who scrambles the world with his tripod

For strangeness au naturel, got sunset to fill them. 

It's not comfortable, a double helix of opalescent...Read more of this...

But Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things

by Constantine P Cavafy
 Because gods perceive future things, men what is happening now,
 but wise men perceive approaching things.

 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7.


Men know what is happening now.
The gods know the things of the future,
the full and sole possessors of all lights.
Of the future things, wise men perceive
approaching things. Their hearing

is sometimes, during serious studies,
disturbed. The mystical clamor
of...Read more of this...

Rutherford McDowell

by Edgar Lee Masters
 They brought me ambrotypes
Of the old pioneers to enlarge.
And sometimes one sat for me—
Some one who was in being
When giant hands from the womb of the world
Tore the republic.
What was it in their eyes?—
For I could never fathom
That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids,
And the serene sorrow of their eyes.
It was like a pool of water,
Amid oak trees at the...Read more of this...

There Is A Candle In Your Heart

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
There is a candle in your heart,
      ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
      ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
You feel the separation
      from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
      embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that 
      Love
      comes...Read more of this...

This is to Love

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
This is love: to fly to heaven, every moment to rend a hundred veils;
At first instance, to break away from breath –
first step, to renounce feet;
To disregard this world, to see only that which you yourself have seen I said,   “Heart, congratulations on entering the circle of...Read more of this...

Dionysus

by Aleister Crowley
 I bring ye wine from above,
From the vats of the storied sun;
For every one of yer love,
And life for every one.
Ye shall dance on hill and level;
Ye shall sing in hollow and height
In the festal mystical revel,
The rapurous Bacchanal rite!
The rocks and trees are yours,
And the waters under the hill,
By the might of that which endures,
The holy heaven of...Read more of this...

The Holy Book

by Jean Delville
Turning the golden pages with my fervent hands,
As if my pure fingers were handling light,
O immense and luminous book, your powerful prayer
Unfolds, in my night, the mystical treasure!

My spirit, in the night, opens its angel's glances
To plunge their lustre into the recesses of your wisdom;
For those who read you, the secret will be known,
Of how divine love changes even degradation...Read more of this...

Plegaria (Prayer)

by Delmira Agustini
Spanish    –Eros: acaso no sentiste nuncaPiedad de las estatuas?Se dirían crisálidas de piedraDe yo no sé qué formidable razaEn una eterna espera inenarrable.Los cráteres dormidos de sus bocasDan la ceniza negra del Silencio,Mana de las columnas de sus hombrosLa mortaja copiosa de la CalmaY fluye de sus órbitas la noche;Victimas del Futuro o del Misterio,En capullos terribles y magníficosEsperan a la...Read more of this...

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