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Famous Ray Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...y knew the soul immortal lives 
Beyond the grave and all the wrecks of time. 


From Judah's sacred hills a partial ray 
Extraneous, visited and cheer'd the gloom 
Spread o'er the shaded earth; yet more than half 
In superstition and the dreams of night 
Each hoary sage by long experience wise, 
And high philosopher of learning fam'd 
Lay buried deep shut from the light of day. 
Shut from the light of revelation clear 
In devious path they wandered oft, 
Nor could str...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens, 
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens, 
In numerous leafage bosomed close; 
Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer, 
Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere 
On cloudy archipelagos. 

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion, 
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion, 
Their unimagined shap...Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...ve for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...and the sun, who, scarce up-risen, 
With wheels yet hovering o'er the ocean-brim, 
Shot parallel to the earth his dewy ray, 
Discovering in wide landskip all the east 
Of Paradise and Eden's happy plains, 
Lowly they bowed adoring, and began 
Their orisons, each morning duly paid 
In various style; for neither various style 
Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise 
Their Maker, in fit strains pronounced, or sung 
Unmeditated; such prompt eloquence 
Flowed from their lips, in ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...or Middle; all things fair and good: 
But all that fair and good in thy divine 
Semblance, and in thy beauty's heavenly ray, 
United I beheld; no fair to thine 
Equivalent or second! which compelled 
Me thus, though importune perhaps, to come 
And gaze, and worship thee of right declared 
Sovran of creatures, universal Dame! 
So talked the spirited sly Snake; and Eve, 
Yet more amazed, unwary thus replied. 
Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt 
The virtue of that fru...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...y was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd 
As of a person separate to God,
Design'd for great exploits; if I must dye
Betray'd, Captiv'd, and both my Eyes put out,
Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in Brazen Fetters under task
With this Heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labour of a Beast, debas't
Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him 
Eyeless in Gaza...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...and her eyes: 
Thus mellowed to that tender light 
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
Had half impaired the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress, 
Or softly lightens o'er her face; 
Where thoughts serenely sweet express, 
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, 
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 
But tell of days in good...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...! 
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past! 
Inflating my throat—you, divine average! 
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. 

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, 
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; 
Corroborating forever the triumph of things. 

Illustrious every one! 
Illustrious what we name space—sphere of unnumber’d spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest ins...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...rest, 
Old Giaffir sate in his Divan: 
Deep thought was in his aged eye; 
And though the face of Mussulman 
Not oft betrays to standers by 
The mind within, well skill'd to hide 
All but unconquerable pride, 
His pensive cheek and pondering brow 
Did more than he wont avow. 

III. 

"Let the chamber be clear'd." — The train disappear'd — 
"Now call me the chief of the Haram guard." 
With Giaffir is none but his only son, 
And the Nubian awaiting the sire's aw...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...is pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to Virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despa...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...r our various ambitions,
As on each case, exactly stated---
To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup,
Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup---
We of the house hold took thought and debated.
Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin
His sire was wont to do forest-work in;
Blesseder he who nobly sunk ``ohs''
And ``ahs'' while he tugged on his grand-sire's trunk-hose;
What signified hats if they had no rims on,
Each slouching before and behin...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...reek unguesst,
That bloom'd to immortalize the Tuscan style 
When first the angel-song that faith hath ken'd
Fancy pourtray'd, above recorded oath
Of Israel's God, or light of poem pen'd;
The very countenance of plighted troth
'Twixt heaven and earth, where in one moment blend
The hope of one and happiness of both. 

8
For beauty being the best of all we know
Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims
Of nature, and on joys whose earthly names
Were never told can form and s...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ty's matchless eye.

     O, wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand
        That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;
     O, wake once more! though scarce my skill command
        Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:
     Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
        And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
     Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
        The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
     Then silent be no more! Enchantress, w...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...h quivering Pinions, in the genial Blaze;
Flys off, in airy Circles: then returns, 
And hums, and dances to the beating Ray.
Nor shall the Man, that, musing, walks alone,
And, heedless, strays within his radiant Lists,
Go unchastis'd away. -- Sometimes, a Fleece
Of Clouds, wide-scattering, with a lucid Veil, 
Soft, shadow o'er th'unruffled Face of Heaven;
And, thro' their dewy Sluices, shed the Sun,
With temper'd Influence down. Then is the Time,
For those, whom W...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...e
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their censers in the element,
With orient incense lit by the new ray
Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,
And in succession due, did Continent,
Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear
The form & character of mortal mould
Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear
Their portion of the toil which he of old
Took as his own & then imposed on them;
But I, whom thoughts which must re...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...d 
The foe to Catholic participation 
In all the license of a Christian nation. 

XLIX 

'True! he allow'd them to pray God; but as 
A consequence of prayer, refused the law 
Which would have placed them upon the same base 
With those who did not hold the saints in awe.' 
But here Saint Peter started from his place, 
And cried, 'You may the prisoner withdraw: 
Ere heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph, 
While I am guard, may I be damn'd myself! 

L

'Sooner will...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...r>
'Twas at these friendly gates that the law was spoken by sages;
In their Penates' defence, heroes rushed out to the fray.
On the high walls appeared the mothers, embracing their infants,
Looking after the march, till the distance 'twas lost.
Then in prayer they threw themselves down at the deities' altars,
Praying for triumph and fame, praying for your safe return.
Honor and triumph were yours, but naught returned save your glory,
And by a heart-touching stone,...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...lt beside the way.
England's wild flowers are fair to view,
Like balm is England's summer dew,
Like gold her sunset ray. 

But the white violets, growing here,
Are sweeter than I yet have seen,
And ne'er did dew so pure and clear
Distil on forest mosses green,
As now, called forth by summer heat,
Perfumes our cool and fresh retreat­
These fragrant limes between. 

That sunset ! Look beneath the boughs,
Over the copse­beyond the hills;
How soft, yet deep and warm i...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...This terrible cessation of everything.
These bodies mounded around me now, these polar sleepers--
What blue, moony ray ices their dreams?

I feel it enter me, cold, alien, like an instrument.
And that mad, hard face at the end of it, that O-mouth
Open in its gape of perpetual grieving.
It is she that drags the blood-black sea around
Month after month, with its voices of failure.
I am helpless as the sea at the end of her string.
I am restless. Restles...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...
Their sadness and their worry, go away,
Early from here I can see the dawn
And here triumphant lives the sun's last ray.
And frequently into my room's window
The winds from northern seas begin to blow
And pigeon from my palms eats wheat..
The pages that I did not complete
Divinely light she is and calm,
Will finish Muse's suntanned arm.



x x x

Just like a cold noreaster
At first she'll sting,
And then a single salty tear
The heart will ...Read more of this...

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