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Famous Thrilling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...he that task, but ever gazed
And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,
Her daily portion, from her father's tent, 
And spread her matting for his couch, and stole
From duties and repose to tend his steps,
Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
To speak her love, and watched his nightly sleep,
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
Parted i...Read more of this...



by Lawrence, D. H.
...sensation
piercing the flesh to blossom of death.
Have done, have done with this shuddering, delicious business
of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion, of rare, death-edged ecstasy.
Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour strike,
O soon, soon!
Let the darkness turn violet with rich dawn.
Let the darkness be warmed, warmed through to a ruddy violet,
incipient purpling towards summer in the world of the heart of man.

Are the violets alread...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...lk, until thought's melody
Become too sweet for utterance, and it die
In words, to live again in looks, which dart
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart,
Harmonizing silence without a sound.
Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound,
And our veins beat together; and our lips
With other eloquence than words, eclipse
The soul that burns between them, and the wells
Which boil under our being's inmost cells,
The fountains of our deepest life, shall be
Confus'd in Pas...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...ife's way; 
When every sense and feeling proved 
Expectancy of brightest day.

When the hand trembled to receive 
A thrilling clasp, which seemed so near, 
And the heart ventured to believe,
Another heart esteemed it dear.

When words, half love, all tenderness, 
Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken, 
When the long, sunny days of bliss, 
Only by moonlight nights were broken.

Till drop by drop, the cup of joy 
Filled full, with purple light, was glowing, 
And Faith...Read more of this...

by Homer,
...s I am, if ever by word or deed of mine I have cheered your heart and spirit. Through the fruitless air I heard the thrilling cry of my daughter whom I bare, sweet scion of my body and lovely in form, as of one seized violently; though with my eyes I saw nothing. But you -- for with your beams you look down from the bright upper air over all the earth and sea -- tell me truly of my dear child if you have seen her anywhere, what god or mortal man has violently seized h...Read more of this...



by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...As if it were a living root;
The pulse of hands will make him mute;
With all his force he gathers balms
Into those wise thrilling palms.

Cupid is a casuist,
A mystic, and a cabalist,
Can your lurking Thought surprise,
And interpret your device;
Mainly versed in occult science,
In magic, and in clairvoyance.
Oft he keeps his fine ear strained,
And reason on her tiptoe pained,
For aery intelligence,
And for strange coincidence.
But it touches his quick heart
When F...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...ood looks.

Little Birds are playing
Bagpipes on the shore,
Where the tourists snore:
"Thanks!" they cry. "'Tis thrilling!
Take, oh take this shilling!
Let us have no more!"

Little Birds are bathing
Crocodiles in cream,
Like a happy dream:
Like, but not so lasting -
Crocodiles, when fasting,
Are not all they seem!

Little Birds are choking
Baronets with bun,
Taught to fire a gun:
Taught, I say, to splinter
Salmon in the winter -
Merely for the fun.

Little Birds ...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ULTING BEAUTY,­phantom of an hour, 
Whose magic spells enchain the heart, 
Ah ! what avails thy fascinating pow'r, 
Thy thrilling smile, thy witching art ? 
Thy lip, where balmy nectar glows; 
Thy cheek, where round the damask rose 
A thousand nameless Graces move, 
Thy mildly speaking azure eyes, 
Thy golden hair, where cunning Love 
In many a mazy ringlet lies? 
Soon as thy radiant form is seen, 
Thy native blush, thy timid mien, 
Thy hour is past ! thy charms are vain! 
IL...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...e winged cherub train,
Shall iterate the aëry strain:
Swift, thro' my quiv'ring nerves shall float
The tremours of each thrilling note; 
And every eager sense confess
Extatic transport's wild excess:
'Till, waking from the glorious dream,
I hail the morn's refulgent beam. 

DEAR Maid! of ever-varying mien, 
Exulting, pensive, gay, serene, 
Now, in transcendent pathos drest, 
Now, gentle as the turtle's breast; 
Where'er thy feath'ry steps shall lead,
To side-long hill, or...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...murderous howls. To Lionel,
Though of great wealth and lineage high,
Yet through those dungeon walls there came
Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!
And as the meteor's midnight flame
Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth
Flashed on his visionary youth,
And filled him, not with love, but faith, 
And hope, and courage mute in death;
For love and life in him were twins,
Born at one birth. In every other
First life, then love, its course begins,
Though they be children of one ...Read more of this...

by Hacker, Marilyn
...en he was coming home from school.
The book that he just read, about the war,
the partisans, is less a terrible
and thrilling story, more a warning, more

a code, and he must puzzle out the code.
He has short hair, a red sweatshirt. They know
something about him—that he should be proud
of? That's shameful if it shows?

That got you killed in 1942. 
In his story, do the partisans
have sons? Have grandparents? Is he a Jew
more than he is a boy, who'll be a man

...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...m the copse left desolate and bare
Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,
Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

So sad, that one might think a human heart
Brake in each separate note, a quality
Which music sometimes has, being the Art
Which is most nigh to tears and memory;
Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?
Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,
No woven web of bloody heral...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...will. I've lost my nerve!
I never strike out boldly as I used to—
But sit here, painting violets, and remember
That thrilling night. Photographers, she said,
Asked her to pose for them; her eyes and forehead,—
Dark brown eyes, and a smooth and pallid forehead,—
Were thought so beautiful.—And so they were.
Pauline . . . These violets are like words remembered . . .
Darling! she whispered . . . Darling! . . . Darli...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...arsher note away,
     Then bursting bolder on the ear,
     The clan's shrill Gathering they could hear,
     Those thrilling sounds that call the might
     Of old Clan-Alpine to the fight.
     Thick beat the rapid notes, as when
     The mustering hundreds shake the glen,
     And hurrying at the signal dread,
     'Fine battered earth returns their tread.
     Then prelude light, of livelier tone,
     Expressed their merry marching on,
     Ere peal of closin...Read more of this...

by Stephens, James
...t did not wend 
To anywhere were there: and ever vast 
And vaster spaces opened -- till at last 
Dizzied with distance, thrilling to a pain 
Unnameable, I turned to Heaven again. 
And there My angels were prepared to fling 
The cloudy incense, there prepared to sing 
My praise and glory -- O, in fury I 
Then roared them senseless, then threw down the sky 
And stamped upon it, buffeted a star 
With my great fist, and flung the sun afar: 
Shouted My anger till the mighty so...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...ten, and I hear the low 
Soft ripple where its water go; 
I hear behind the panther's cry, 
The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, 
And shyly on the river's brink 
The deer is stooping down to drink. 

But hard! -- from wood and rock flung back, 
What sound come up the Merrimac? 
What sea-worn barks are those which throw 
The light spray from each rushing prow? 
Have they not in the North Sea's blast 
Bowed to the waves the straining mast? 
Their frozen sails the low, ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ave, solemn!' 
Walter warped his mouth at this 
To something so mock-solemn, that I laughed 
And Lilia woke with sudden-thrilling mirth 
An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, 
Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had touched her face 
With colour) turned to me with 'As you will; 
Heroic if you will, or what you will, 
Or be yourself you hero if you will.' 

'Take Lilia, then, for heroine' clamoured he, 
'And make her some great Princess, six feet ...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...th thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within....Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...d only be read
as pleasure, coming close

then diving, trailing on the surface
big spreading circles
until he'd breach, thrilling us

with the release of pressured breath,
and the bulk of his sleek young head
—a wet black leather sofa

already barnacled with ghostly lice—
and his elegant and unlikely mouth,
and the marvelous afterthought of the flukes,

and the way his broad flippers
resembled a pair of clownish gloves
or puppet hands, looming greenish white

beneath the bay'...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...ghtingale,
Oh mavis, lark and robin - hail!
Tell me what perfect passion glows
In your inspired arpeggios?

A thrush is thrilling as I write
Its obligato of delight;
And in its fervour, as in mine,
I fathom tenderness divine,
And pity those of earthy ear
Who cannot hear . . . who cannot hear.

Let poets pattern pretty words:
For lovely largesse - bless you, Birds!...Read more of this...

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