Famous Rave Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Allusion to Horace

by John Wilmot
 Well Sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's Rhimes, 
Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times: 
What foolish Patron, is there found of his, 
So blindly partial, to deny me this? 
But that his Plays, Embroider'd up and downe, 
With Witt, and Learning, justly pleas'd the Towne, 
In the same paper, I as freely owne: 
Yet haveing this allow'd, the...Read more of this...

Lines Written in Kensington Gardens

by Matthew Arnold
 In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a...Read more of this...

The Twins

by Aleister Crowley
 [Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]


Have pity ! show no pity !
Those eyes that send such shivers
Into my brain and spine : oh let them
Flame like the ancient city
Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers
When men let angels fret them !

Yea ! let the south wind blow,
And the Turkish banner advance,
And the word go out : No quarter !
But I shall...Read more of this...

Ode to Envy

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides, 
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began: 
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire. 
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating...Read more of this...

A Prayer in Darkness

by G K Chesterton
 This much, O heaven—if I should brood or rave, 
Pity me not; but let the world be fed, 
Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead, 
Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave. 

If I dare snarl between this sun and sod, 
Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own, 
In sun and rain and fruit...Read more of this...

Ode on Melancholy

by John Keats
NO no! go not to Lethe neither twist 
Wolf's-bane tight-rooted for its poisonous wine; 
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist 
By nightshade ruby grape of Proserpine; 
Make not your rosary of yew-berries 5 
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be 
Your mournful Psyche nor the downy owl 
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; 
For shade to shade...Read more of this...

Behind the Scenes

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The actor struts his little hour, 
Between the limelight and the band; 
The public feel the actor's power, 
Yet nothing do they understand 
Of all the touches here and there 
That make or mar the actor's part, 
They never see, beneath the glare, 
The artist striving after art. 
To them it seems a labour slight 
Where nought of study...Read more of this...

Preference

by Charlotte Bronte
 NOT in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.
These, then, are thine oaths of passion ?
This, thy tenderness for me ?
Judged, even, by thine own confession,
Thou art steeped in perfidy.
Having vanquished, thou wouldst leave me !
Thus I read thee long ago;
Therefore, dared I...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Indian Chief

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 8th of January 1881,
That a terrific gale along the English Channel ran,
And spread death and disaster in its train,
Whereby the "Indian Chief" vessel was tossed on the raging main. 

She was driven ashore on the Goodwin Sands,
And the good captain fearlessly issued hie commands,
"Come, my men, try snd save the vessel, work with all your might,"
Although...Read more of this...

The Lotos-eaters

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land 
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the...Read more of this...

John Rouat the Fisherman

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Margaret Simpson was the daughter of humble parents in the county of Ayr,
With a comely figure, and face of beauty rare,
And just in the full bloom of her womanhood,
Was united to John Rouat, a fisherman good. 

John's fortune consisted of his coble, three oars, and his fishing-gear,
Besides his two stout boys, John and James, he loved most dear.
And no...Read more of this...

3. Song—I dream'd I lay

by Robert Burns
 I DREAM’D I lay where flowers were springing
 Gaily in the sunny beam;
List’ning to the wild birds singing,
 By a falling crystal stream:
Straight the sky grew black and daring;
 Thro’ the woods the whirlwinds rave;
Tress with aged arms were warring,
 O’er the swelling drumlie wave.


Such was my life’s deceitful morning,
 Such the pleasures I enjoyed:
But lang or noon, loud...Read more of this...

The Argument

by Robert William Service
 Said Jock McBrown to Tam McSmith,
"A little bet I'm game to take on,
That I can scotch this Shakespeare myth
And prove Will just a stoodge for Bacon."

Said Tam McSmith to Jock McBrown,
"Ye gyke, I canna let ye rave on.
See here, I put a shilling down:
My betting's on the Bard of Avon."

Said Jock McBrown to Tam McSmith,
"Come on, ye'll pay a...Read more of this...

In Memory of F.P

by Katherine Philips
 If I could ever write a lasting verse,
It should be laid, deare Sainte, upon thy herse.
But Sorrow is no muse, and doth confesse
That it least can what most it would expresse.
Yet, that I may some bounds to griefe allow,
I'le try if I can weepe in numbers now.
Ah beauteous blossom! too untimely dead!
Whither, ah whither is thy sweetness fled?
Where are...Read more of this...

Wild May

by Claude McKay
 Aleta mentions in her tender letters, 
Among a chain of quaint and touching things, 
That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters, 
And given to strange deeds and mutterings. 
No longer without trace or thought of fear, 
Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan; 
But have become the victim of grim care, 
With three brown beauties to...Read more of this...

Love Is A Parallax

by Sylvia Plath
 'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
 in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
 where wave pretends to drench real sky.' 

'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd
that one man's devil is another's god
 or that the solar spectrum is
a multitude of...Read more of this...

Answers In A Game Of Questions

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE LADY.

IN the small and great world too,

What most charms a woman's heart?
It is doubtless what is new,

For its blossoms joy impart;
Nobler far is what is true,

For fresh blossoms it can shoot

Even in the time of fruit.

THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN.

With the Nymphs in wood and cave

Paris was acquainted well,
Till Zeus sent, to make him rave,

Three of those in Heav'n who...Read more of this...

The Haggis Of Private McPhee

by Robert William Service
 "Hae ye heard whit ma auld mither's postit tae me?
It fair maks me hamesick," says Private McPhee.
"And whit did she send ye?" says Private McPhun,
As he cockit his rifle and bleezed at a Hun.
"A haggis! A Haggis!" says Private McPhee;
"The brawest big haggis I ever did see.
And think! it's the morn when fond memory turns
Tae haggis and whuskey--the Birthday...Read more of this...

Hymn on the Morning of Christs Nativity

by John Milton
 IT was the Winter wilde, 
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
 All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; 
Nature in aw to him 
Had doff't her gawdy trim, 
 With her great Master so to sympathize: 
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour. 

Only with speeches fair 
She woo's the gentle Air...Read more of this...

The City Bushman

by Henry Lawson
 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade...Read more of this...

La Solitude de St. Amant

by Katherine Philips
 1

O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
O Heavens! what content is mine,
To see those trees which have appear'd
From the nativity of Time,
And which hall ages have rever'd,
To look to-day as fresh and green,
As when their beauties first were seen!


2

A cheerful wind does court them so,
And with such...Read more of this...

Hymn to Pan

by Aleister Crowley
 Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man ! My man !
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan ! Io Pan .
Io Pan ! Io Pan ! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady !
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and styrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me,
Coem with...Read more of this...

Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we...Read more of this...

Burning of the Exeter Theatre

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1887, which many people will long remember,
The burning of the Theatre at Exeter on the 5th of September,
Alas! that ever-to-be-remembered and unlucky night,
When one hundred and fifty lost their lives, a most agonising sight. 

The play on this night was called "Romany Rye,"
And at act four, scene third, Fire! Fire! was the cry;
And all...Read more of this...

Baile And Aillinn

by William Butler Yeats
 ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the
Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land
among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.

 I hardly hear the curlew cry,
 Nor thegrey rush when the wind is high,
 Before my thoughts begin to run
...Read more of this...

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