Famous Rapture Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rapture poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rapture poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rapture poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
I.--VENTIMIGLIA
The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank:
Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free,
A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thank
The sky and sea.
One dead flat sapphire, void of wrath or glee,
Through bay on bay shone blind from bank to bank
The weary Mediterranean, drear to see.
More deep, more living, shone her...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compelling
Bodies to unite in one blest whole--
Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magic
By which soul rejoins its kindred soul!
See! it teaches yonder roving planets
Round the sun to fly in endless race;
And as children play around their mother,
Checkered circles round the orb to trace.
Every rolling star, by thirst tormented,
Drinks with joy its bright and golden...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Why, through each aching vein, with lazy pace
Thus steals the languid fountain of my heart,
While, from its source, each wild convulsive start
Tears the scorch'd roses from my burning face?
In vain, O Lesbian Vales! your charms I trace;
Vain is the poet's theme, the sculptor's art;
No more the Lyre its magic can impart,
Though wak'd to sound, with more than mortal...Read more of this...
by
Marina Tsvetaeva
Whence cometh such tender rapture?
Those curls--they are not the first ones
I've smoothened, and I've already
Known lips--that were darker than yours.
The stars have risen and faded,
--Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
And eyes have risen and faded
In face of these eyes of mine
I'd never yet hearkened unto
Such songs in the depths of darkness,
--Whence cometh such tender rapture?--
My head on the bard's...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
Revolving in their destin'd sphere,
The hours begin another year
As rapidly to fly;
Ah! think, Maria, (e'er in grey
Those auburn tresses fade away
So youth and beauty die.
Tho' now the captivating throng
Adore with flattery and song,
And all before you bow;
Whilst unattentive to the strain,
You hear the humble muse complain,
Or wreathe your frowning...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
From earth I seem to wing my flight,
And sun myself in Heaven's pure light,
When thy sweet gaze meets mine
I dream I quaff ethereal dew,
When my own form I mirrored view
In those blue eyes divine!
Blest notes from Paradise afar,
Or strains from some benignant star
Enchant my ravished ear:
My Muse feels then the shepherd's hour
When silvery tones of magic power
Escape those lips...Read more of this...
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...
by
Robert Burns
THO’ 1 women’s minds, like winter winds,
May shift, and turn, an’ a’ that,
The noblest breast adores them maist—
A consequence I draw that.
Chorus For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
And twice as meikle’s a’ that;
The bonie lass that I loe best
She’ll be my ain for a’ that.
Great love I bear to a’ the fair,
Their humble...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
(To Sylvia.)
My Love, my Love, it was a day in June,
A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon;
And all the eager people thronging came
To that great hall, drawn by the magic name
Of one, a high magician, who can raise
The spirits of the past and future days,
And draw the dreams from out the secret breast,
Giving them life and shape.
I, with the rest,
Sat there...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.
Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
I drown my entire soul in your two eyes, and the mad rapture of that frenzied soul, so that, having been steeped in their gentleness and prayer, it may be returned to me brighter and of truer temper.
O for a union that refines the being, as two golden windows in the same apse cross their differently lucent fires and interpenetrate!
I...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
[I feel considerable hesitation in venturing
to offer this version of a poem which Carlyle describes to be 'a
beautiful piece (a very Hans Sacks beatified, both in character
and style), which we wish there was any possibility of translating.'
The reader will be aware that Hans Sachs was the celebrated Minstrel-
Cobbler of Nuremberg, who Wrote 208 plays,...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
To-day to heights of rapture have I soared,
Yea, and with drunken Maghs pure wine adored;
I am become beside myself, and rest
In that pure temple, «Am not I your Lord?»...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Now, round my favor'd grot let roses rise,
To strew the bank where Phaon wakes from rest;
O! happy buds! to kiss his burning breast,
And die, beneath the lustre of his eyes!
Now, let the timbrels echo to the skies,
Now damsels sprinkel cassia on his vest,
With od'rous wreaths of constant myrtle drest,
And flow'rs, deep tinted with the rainbow's dyes!
From cups...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
While skies glint bright with bluest light
Through clouds that race o'er fields and town,
And leaves go dancing left and right,
And orchard apples tumble down;
While school-girls sweet, in lane or street,
Lean 'gainst the wind and feel and hear
Its glad heart like a lover's beat,--
So reigns the rapture of the year.
The ho! and hey!...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Could I from this valley drear,
Where the mist hangs heavily,
Soar to some more blissful sphere,
Ah! how happy should I be!
Distant hills enchant my sight,
Ever young and ever fair;
To those hills I'd take my flight
Had I wings to scale the air.
Harmonies mine ear assail,
Tunes that breathe a heavenly calm;
And the gently-sighing gale
Greets me with its fragrant balm.
Peeping through the shady...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Campbell
Soul of the Poet ! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality ;
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.
And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and Strife, at Burn's name,
Exorcised by his memory ;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.
And...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
How fair doth Nature
Appear again!
How bright the sunbeams!
How smiles the plain!
The flow'rs are bursting
From ev'ry bough,
And thousand voices
Each bush yields now.
And joy and gladness
Fill ev'ry breast!
Oh earth!--oh sunlight!
Oh rapture blest!
Oh love! oh loved one!
As golden bright,
As clouds of morning
On yonder height!
Thou blessest gladly
The smiling field,--
The world in fragrant
Vapour conceal'd.
Oh maiden, maiden,
How love I thee!
Thine eye, how gleams it!
How lov'st...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SOME books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid at times to vend,
And nail’t wi’ Scripture.
But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befell,
Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell
Or Dublin city:
That e’er he nearer comes oursel’
...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Young and kindly spring who clothes our garden with beauty makes lucid our voices and words, and steeps them in his limpidity.
The breeze and the lips of the leaves babble, and slowly shed in us the syllables of their brightness.
But the best in us turns away and flees material words; a mute and mild and simple rapture, better than all...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
I.
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such,
I suppose ... she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,
II.
What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I...Read more of this...
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...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Treason of an accent
Might Ecstasy transfer --
Of her effacing Fathom
Is no Recoverer --
--
The Treason of an Accent
Might vilify the Joy --
To breathe -- corrode the rapture
Of Sanctity to be --...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
HE.
CANST thou give, oh fair and matchless maiden,
'Neath the shadow of the lindens yonder,--
Where I'd fain one moment cease to wander,--
Food and drink to one so heavy laden?
SHE.
Wouldst thou find refreshment, traveller weary,
Bread, ripe fruit and cream to meet thy wishes,--
None but Nature's plain and homely dishes,--
Near the spring may soothe thy wanderings dreary.
HE.
Dreams of old acquaintance now pass...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Who and what gave to me the wish to woo thee--
Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee?
Who made thy glances to my soul the link--
Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink--
My life in thine to sink?
As from the conqueror's unresisted glaive,
Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave--
So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
Thy...Read more of this...
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