Famous Thrill Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Her Thought And His

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky,
A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.
The gleam on the waves and the light on the land,[Pg 94]
A thrill in my heart,—and—my sweetheart's hand.
She turned from the sea with a woman's grace,
And the light fell soft on her upturned face,
And I thought of the flood-tide of...Read more of this...

Christmas In The Heart

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The snow lies deep upon the ground,
And winter's brightness all around
Decks bravely out the forest sere,
With jewels of the brave old year.
The coasting crowd upon the hill
With some new spirit seems to thrill;
And all the temple bells achime.
Ring out the glee of Christmas time.
In happy homes the brown oak-bough
Vies with the red-gemmed holly now;
And here and there, like pearls, there...Read more of this...

Many Soldiers

by Edgar Lee Masters
 The idea danced before us as a flag;
The sound of martial music;
The thrill of carrying a gun;
Advancement in the world on coming home;
A glint of glory, wrath for foes;
A dream of duty to country or to God.
But these were things in ourselves, shining before us,
They were not the power behind us,
Which was the Almighty hand of Life,
Like fire at...Read more of this...

The Thrill came slowly like a Boom for

by Emily Dickinson
 The Thrill came slowly like a Boom for
Centuries delayed
Its fitness growing like the Flood
In sumptuous solitude --
The desolations only missed
While Rapture changed its Dress
And stood amazed before the Change
In ravished Holiness --...Read more of this...

Masses

by Carl Sandburg
 AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and
red crag and was amazed;
On the beach where the long push under the endless tide
maneuvers, I stood silent;
Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant
over the horizon's grass, I was full of thoughts.
Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers,
mothers lifting their children--these all I
touched, and...Read more of this...

After All

by Henry Lawson
 The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town; 
My spirit revives in the morning breeze, 
though it died when the sun went down; 
The river is high and the stream is strong, 
and the grass is green and tall, 
And I fain would think that this world of ours is a good world after...Read more of this...

130. Nature's Law: A Poem

by Robert Burns
 LET other heroes boast their scars,
 The marks of sturt and strife:
And other poets sing of wars,
 The plagues of human life:
Shame fa’ the fun, wi’ sword and gun
 To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name, and nobler fame,
 Wha multiplies our number.


Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
 “Go on, ye human race;
This lower world I you resign;
...Read more of this...

Wallflower

by Robert William Service
 Till midnight her needle she plied
To finish her pretty pink dress;
"Oh, bless you, my darling," she sighed;
"I hope you will be a success."
As she entered the Oddfellow's Hall
With the shy thrill of maiden romance
She felt like the belle of the Ball,
But . . . nobody asked her to dance.

Her programme was clutched in her hand;
Her smile was a tiny...Read more of this...

Joseph Dixon

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Who carved this shattered harp on my stone?
I died to you, no doubt. But how many harps and pianos
Wired I and tightened and disentangled for you,
Making them sweet again -- with tuning fork or without?
Oh well! A harp leaps out of the ear of a man, you say,
But whence the ear that orders the length of the strings
To a...Read more of this...

The Violet Pressed in a Copy of Shakespeare

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Here in the inmost of the master's heart
This violet crisp with early dew
Has come to leave her beauty and to part
With all her vivid hue.

And while in hollow glades and dells of musk,
Her fellows will reflower in bands,
Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk,
With sweet inviolate hands,

She will lie here, a ghost of their delight,
Their lucent stems all...Read more of this...

Rosalinds Scroll

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I LEFT thee last a child at heart  
A woman scarce in years: 
I come to thee a solemn corpse 
Which neither feels nor fears. 
I have no breath to use in sighs; 5 
They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes 
To seal them safe from tears. 

Look on me with thine own calm look: 
I meet it calm...Read more of this...

Morning Coffee

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 Reading the menu at the morning service: 
- Iced Venusberg perhaps, or buttered bum - 
Orders the usual sex-ersatz, and, nervous, 
Glances around - Will she or won't she come? 

The congregation dissected into pews 
Gulping their strip teas in the luminous cavern 
Agape's sacamental berry stews; 
The nickel-plated light and clatter of heaven 

Receive him, temporary Tantalus 
Into...Read more of this...

Fleurette

by Robert William Service
 (The Wounded Canadian Speaks)

My leg? It's off at the knee.
Do I miss it? Well, some. You see
 I've had it since I was born;
 And lately a devilish corn.
(I rather chuckle with glee
 To think how I've fooled that corn.)

But I'll hobble around all right.
 It isn't that, it's my face.
Oh I know I'm a hideous sight,
 Hardly a...Read more of this...

104. The Lament

by Robert Burns
 O THOU pale orb that silent shines
 While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.
 And wanders here to wail and weep!
 With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;
 And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream!


I joyless view thy rays adorn
 The faintly-marked, distant hill;
I joyless view thy trembling...Read more of this...

The Girl Of Otaheite

by Victor Hugo
 ("O! dis-moi, tu veux fuir?") 
 
 {Bk. IV, vii., Jan. 31, 1821.} 


 Forget? Can I forget the scented breath 
 Of breezes, sighing of thee, in mine ear; 
 The strange awaking from a dream of death, 
 The sudden thrill to find thee coming near? 
 Our huts were desolate, and far away 
 I heard...Read more of this...

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

by William Vaughn Moody
 After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted ***** regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.


I 

Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made 
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe, 
And set here in the city's talk and trade 
To the good memory of...Read more of this...

My Gentle Harp

by Thomas Moore
 My gentle Harp, once more I waken 
The sweetness of thy slumbering strain; 
In tears our last farewell was taken, 
And now in tears we meet again. 
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken, 
But, like those harps whose heavenly skill 
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken, 
Thou hang'st upon the willows still. 

And yet, since last...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book

by Rabindranath Tagore
 It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the
noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims
that the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the
birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden
hooks are waiting there for the thrill of lovers' whispers. There
the moon-light, that...Read more of this...

Remembered

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
She sang, and I listened the whole song thro'.
(It was sweet, so sweet, the singing.)
The stars were out and the moon it grew
From a wee soft glimmer way out in the blue
To a bird thro' the heavens winging.
She sang, and the song trembled down to my breast,—
(It was sweet, so sweet the singing.)
As a dove just out of its fledgling...Read more of this...

Sonnet 20 - Beloved my Beloved when I think

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sat alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,
Went counting all my chains as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink
Of...Read more of this...

Today

by Siegfried Sassoon
 This is To-day, a child in white and blue 
Running to meet me out of Night who stilled 
The ghost of Yester-eve; this is fair Morn 
The mother of To-morrow. And these clouds 
That chase the sunshine over gleaming hills
Are thoughts, delighting in the golden change 
And the ceremony of their drifting state. 

This is To-day. To-morrow might bring...Read more of this...

Stanzas To Jessy

by George (Lord) Byron
 There is a mystic thread of life
So dearly wreath'd with mine alone,
That Destiny's relentless knife
At once must sever both, or none.

There is a Form on which these eyes
Have fondly gazed with such delight---
By day, that Form their joy supplies,
And Dreams restore it, through the night.

There is a Voice whose tones inspire
Such softened feelings in my breast,
I would not hear...Read more of this...

The Mystic Sea

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The smell of the sea in my nostrils,
[Pg 92]The sound of the sea in mine ears;
The touch of the spray on my burning face,
Like the mist of reluctant tears.
The blue of the sky above me,
The green of the waves beneath;
The sun flashing down on a gray-white sail
Like a scimitar from its sheath.
And ever the breaking billows,
And ever the...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXV

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXV. Ove ch' i' posi gli occhi lassi o giri. HER IMAGE IS EVER IN HIS HEART.  Where'er I rest or turn my weary eyes,To ease the longings which allure them still,Love pictures my bright lady at his will,That ever my desire may verdant rise.Deep pity she with graceful grief...Read more of this...

Life Is A Privilege

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Life is a privilege. Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire, 
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire, 
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions – in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling – God! in truth, 
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!...Read more of this...

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