Famous Rejoicing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4

by Alexander Pope
 But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd, 
And secret passions labour'd in her breast.
Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin!...Read more of this...

Sestina: Altaforte

by Ezra Pound
 LOQUITUR: En Bertans de Born. Dante Alighieri put this man in hell
for that he was a stirrer up of strife. Eccovi! Judge ye! Have I dug
him up again? The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. "Papiols" is his
jongleur. "The Leopard," the device of Richard Coeur de Lion.

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come!...Read more of this...

Roast Leviathan

by Louis Untermeyer
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,
The little goyim, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert...Read more of this...

303. Song—The Gowden Locks of Anna

by Robert Burns
 YESTREEN I had a pint o’ wine,
 A place where body saw na;
Yestreen lay on this breast o’ mine
 The gowden locks of Anna.


The hungry Jew in wilderness,
 Rejoicing o’er his manna,
Was naething to my hinny bliss
 Upon the lips of Anna.


Ye monarchs, take the East and West
 Frae Indus to Savannah;
Gie me, within my straining grasp,
 The melting...Read more of this...

My Aviary

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 THROUGH my north window, in the wintry weather,--
My airy oriel on the river shore,--
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in...Read more of this...

The Muses Mirror

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment,
Follow'd a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking.
Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted
Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger.
Yet the stream call'd mockingly after her, saying: "What, truly!
Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in my mirror so clearly depicted?"
But she already was far...Read more of this...

A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign

by Vachel Lindsay
 I LOOK on the specious electrical light 
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white, 
Wickedly red or malignantly green 
Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen. 
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on, 
The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn, 
By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl, 
Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl, 
By maggotry motions...Read more of this...

In Guernsey - To Theodore Watts

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 The heavenly bay, ringed round with cliffs and moors,
Storm-stained ravines, and crags that lawns inlay,
Soothes as with love the rocks whose guard secures
The heavenly bay.

O friend, shall time take ever this away,
This blessing given of beauty that endures,
This glory shown us, not to pass but stay?

Though sight be changed for memory, love ensures
What memory, changed by love to sight,...Read more of this...

The Blackbird Of Derrycairn

by Austin Clarke
 Stop, stop and listen for the bough top
Is whistling and the sun is brighter
Than God's own shadow in the cup now!
Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins
Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.

Faintly through mist of broken water
Fionn heard my melody in Norway.
He found the forest track, he brought back
This beak to gild the branch and tell, there,
Why men must welcome...Read more of this...

The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array
And your central girders, which seem to the eye
To be almost towering to the sky.
The greatest wonder of the day,
And a great beautification to the River Tay,
Most beautiful to be seen,
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green. 

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
That...Read more of this...

When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning their remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime,
Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead,
Sleeping away the unreturning time.
O sweet,...Read more of this...

Death And Life

by Robert William Service
 'Twas in the grave-yard's gruesome gloom
That May and I were mated;
We sneaked inside and on a tomb
Our love was consummated.
It's quite all right, no doubt we'll wed,
Our sin will go unchidden . . .
Ah! sweeter than the nuptial bed
Are ecstasies forbidden.

And as I held my sweetheart close,
And she was softly sighing,
I could not help but think of those
In peace...Read more of this...

The Convent Threshold

by Christina Rossetti
 There's blood between us, love, my love,
There's father's blood, there's brother's blood,
And blood's a bar I cannot pass.
I choose the stairs that mount above,
Stair after golden sky-ward stair,
To city and to sea of glass.
My lily feet are soiled with mud,
With scarlet mud which tells a tale
Of hope that was, of guilt that was,
Of love that shall not yet avail;
Alas,...Read more of this...

257. Ode on the Departed Regency Bill

by Robert Burns
 DAUGHTER of Chaos’ doting years,
 Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears,
 Whether thy airy, insubstantial shade
 (The rights of sepulture now duly paid)
 Spread abroad its hideous form
 On the roaring civil storm,
 Deafening din and warring rage
 Factions wild with factions wage;
Or under-ground, deep-sunk, profound,
 Among the demons of the earth,
With groans that make the mountains shake,
...Read more of this...

Grif of the Bloody Hand

by William Topaz McGonagall
 In an immense wood in the south of Kent,
There lived a band of robbers which caused the people discontent;
And the place they infested was called the Weald,
Where they robbed wayside travellers and left them dead on the field. 

Their leader was called Grif, of the Bloody Hand,
And so well skilled in sword practice there's few could him withstand;
And sometimes...Read more of this...

hawthorns and the like

by Rg Gregory
 as the landscape falls away
the hawthorn in its gnarly fashion
is content to stand alone
berries (the very tint of passion)
that birds are wont to feed upon
bloodstain the shortened day

a stubborn tree that speaks
of crusty age - its thorns alert
to any too-spirited invasion
who comes (it seems to say) gets hurt 
not those birds with juicy beaks
insects swarm – by invitation

come may...Read more of this...

Blessing The Cornfields

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Sing, O Song of Hiawatha,
Of the happy days that followed,
In the land of the Ojibways,
In the pleasant land and peaceful!
Sing the mysteries of Mondamin,
Sing the Blessing of the Cornfields!
Buried was the bloody hatchet,
Buried was the dreadful war-club,
Buried were all warlike weapons,
And the war-cry was forgotten.
There was peace among the nations;
Unmolested roved the hunters,
Built the birch canoe for sailing,
Caught the...Read more of this...

On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes

by G K Chesterton
 Impetuously I sprang from bed,
Long before lunch was up,
That I might drain the dizzy dew
From the day's first golden cup.

In swift devouring ecstasy
Each toil in turn was done;
I had done lying on the lawn
Three minutes after one.

For me, as Mr. Wordsworth says,
The duties shine like stars;
I formed my uncle's character,
Decreasing his cigars.

But could my kind engross me? No!
Stern Art-what...Read more of this...

The Fitzroy Blacksmith

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Under the spreading deficit, 
The Fitzroy Smithy stands; 
The smith, a spendthrift man is he, 
With too much on his hands; 
But the muscles of his brawny jaw 
Are strong as iron bands. 
Pay out, pay put, from morn till night, 
You can hear the sovereigns go; 
Or you'll hear him singing "Old Folks at Home", 
In a deep...Read more of this...

We Meet at the Judgment and I Fear It Not

by Vachel Lindsay
 Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
With golden hope my spirit still adorning.


Our God who made you all so fair and sweet
Is three times gentle, and before his feet
Rejoicing I shall say:—"The girl you gave
Was my first Heaven, an angel bent to save.
Oh, God, her maker, if my ingrate breath
Is worth...Read more of this...

The Daguerreotype

by William Vaughn Moody
 This, then, is she, 
My mother as she looked at seventeen, 
When she first met my father. Young incredibly, 
Younger than spring, without the faintest trace 
Of disappointment, weariness, or tean 
Upon the childlike earnestness and grace 
Of the waiting face. 
Those close-wound ropes of pearl 
(Or common beads made precious by their use) 
Seem heavy for so slight...Read more of this...

The City

by Constantine P Cavafy
 WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour,
And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power
O’erthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear?
Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear
O’er the prodigious, smouldering, dusky, city flare.
The hanging gardens of Babylon were not more fair
Than these blue flickering glades, where childhood in its glee
Re-echoes with fresh voice the heaven-lit...Read more of this...

Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait

by Dylan Thomas
 The bows glided down, and the coast
Blackened with birds took a last look
At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye;
The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck.

Then good-bye to the fishermanned
Boat with its anchor free and fast
As a bird hooking over the sea,
High and dry by the top of the mast,

Whispered the affectionate sand
And the bulwarks of the dazzled quay.
For...Read more of this...

The Song Of Empedocles

by Matthew Arnold
 And you, ye stars,
Who slowly begin to marshal,
As of old, in the fields of heaven,
Your distant, melancholy lines!
Have you, too, survived yourselves?
Are you, too, what I fear to become?
You, too, once lived;
You too moved joyfully
Among august companions,
In an older world, peopled by Gods,
In a mightier order,
The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent Sons of Heaven.
But now, ye kindle
Your lonely, cold-shining lights,
Unwilling lingerers
In...Read more of this...

Genius

by Victor Hugo
 (DEDICATED TO CHATEAUBRIAND.) 
 
 {Bk. IV. vi., July, 1822.} 


 Woe unto him! the child of this sad earth, 
 Who, in a troubled world, unjust and blind, 
 Bears Genius—treasure of celestial birth, 
 Within his solitary soul enshrined. 
 Woe unto him! for Envy's pangs impure, 
 Like the undying vultures', will be driven 
 Into...Read more of this...

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