Famous To Harp On Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Rumors from an Aeolian Harp

by Henry David Thoreau
 There is a vale which none hath seen, 
Where foot of man has never been, 
Such as here lives with toil and strife, 
An anxious and a sinful life. 
There every virtue has its birth, 
Ere it descends upon the earth, 
And thither every deed returns, 
Which in the generous bosom burns. 

There love is warm, and youth is...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...

Bill and Joe

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by,
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew,
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;
To-day, old...Read more of this...

The Suicide

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,—
Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
As if spent...Read more of this...

Mirage

by Christina Rossetti
 The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the...Read more of this...

Hymn 37 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 Christ's humiliation, exaltation, and triumph.

Phil. 2:8,9; Mark 15:20,24,29; Col. 2:15. 

The mighty frame of glorious grace,
That brightest monument of praise
That e'er the God of love designed,
Employs and fills my lab'ring mind.

Begin, my soul, the heav'nly song,
A burden for an angel's tongue:
When Gabriel sounds these awful things,
He tunes and summons all his stungs.

Proclaim inimitable love:
Jesus, the Lord of worlds above,
Puts...Read more of this...

What man, what hero (QUEMN VIRUM AUT HEROA)

by Horace
     What man, what hero, Clio sweet,
       On harp or flute wilt thou proclaim?
     What god shall echo's voice repeat
       In mocking game
     To Helicon's sequester'd shade,
       Or Pindus, or...Read more of this...

Harp Song of the Dane Women

by Rudyard Kipling
 What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in--
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you--
Out on...Read more of this...

Shall the Harp Then Be Silent

by Thomas Moore
 Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave 
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes? 
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave 
Where the first -- where the last of her Patriots lies? 

No -- faint though the death-song may fall from his lips, 
Though his Harp, like his soul,...Read more of this...

Sing Sweet Harp

by Thomas Moore
 Sing, sweet Harp, oh sing to me 
Some song of ancient days, 
Whose sounds, in this sad memory, 
Long-buried dreams shall raise; -- 
Some lay that tells of vanish'd fame, 
Whose light once round us shone, 
Of noble pride, now turn'd to shame, 
And hopes for ever gone. 
Sing, sad Harp, thus sing to me; 
Alike our doom is...Read more of this...

Dear Harp of my Country

by Thomas Moore
 Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee, 
The cold chain of Silence had hung o'er thee long.
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee, 
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song. 
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness 
Have waken'd thy fondest, thy livliest thrill, 
But, so oft...Read more of this...

The Harp That Once Through Taras Halls

by Thomas Moore
 The harp that once through Tara's halls 
The soul of music shed, 
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls, 
As if that soul were fled. -- 
So sleeps the pride of former days, 
So glory's thrill is o'er, 
And hearts, that once beat high for praise, 
Now feel that pulse no more. 

No more to chiefs and ladies bright...Read more of this...

Harp of the North Farewell!

by Sir Walter Scott
 Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, 
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; 
In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, 
The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending. 
Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, 
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; 
Thy numbers sweet with nature’s vespers blending, 
With distant echo from the fold...Read more of this...

Psalm CXXXVII The Babylonian Captivity

by Joel Barlow
 ALONG the banks where Babel's current flows 
Our captive bands in deep despondence stray'd, 
While Zion's fall in sad remembrance rose, 
Her friends, her children mingled with the dead. 

The tuneless harp, that once with joy we strung, 
When praise employ'd and mirth inspir'd the lay, 
In mournful silence on the willows hung; 
And growing grief prolong'd the tedious...Read more of this...

Farewell To The Muse

by George (Lord) Byron
 Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Harp-Weaver

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 "Son," said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
"you've need of clothes to cover you,
and not a rag have I.

"There's nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with,
Nor thread to take stitches.

"There's nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman's head
Nobody will buy,"
And she began to cry.

That was in the...Read more of this...

Aeolian Harp

by William Allingham
 O pale green sea, 
With long, pale, purple clouds above - 
What lies in me like weight of love ? 
What dies in me 
With utter grief, because there comes no sign 
Through the sun-raying West, or the dim sea-line ? 

O salted air, 
Blown round the rocky headland still, 
What calls me there from cove and hill? 
What...Read more of this...

Oh! Blame Not the Bard

by Thomas Moore
 Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers 
Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame; 
He was born for much more, and in happier hours 
His soul might have burn'd with a holier flame. 
The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre, 
Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart;
And the lip, which...Read more of this...

The Origin of the Harp

by Thomas Moore
 Tis believed that this Harp, which I wake now for thee 
Was a Siren of old, who sung under the sea; 
And who often, at eve, through the bright waters roved, 
To meet, on the green shore, a youth whom she loved. 

But she loved him in vain, for he left her to weep, 
And in tears, all the...Read more of this...

The Shadowy Waters: The Harp of Aengus

by William Butler Yeats
Edain came out of Midhir's hill, and lay
Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,
And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made
Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite
Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings,
Sweet with all music, out of his long hair,
Because her hands had been made...Read more of this...

That Half-Crown Sweep

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The run of Billabong-go-dry 
Is just beyond Lime Burner's Gap; 
Its waterhole and tank supply 
Is excellent -- upon the map. 
But lacking nature's liquid drench, 
The station staff are wont to try 
With "Bob-in Sweeps" their thirst to quench, 
Or nearly quench, at Bong-go-dry. 
The parson made five-yearly rounds 
That soil of arid souls to delve, 
He wrote,...Read more of this...

Ode to the Cambro-Britons and their Harp His Ballad of Agi

by Michael Drayton
 Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance;
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train
Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnish'd in warlike sort,
Marcheth towards Agincourt
In happy hour;
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopp'd his way,
Where the French gen'ral lay
With all his power.

Which, in...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIV: Come Soft Aeolian Harp

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Come, soft Aeolian harp, while zephyr plays
Along the meek vibration of thy strings,
As twilight's hand her modest mantle brings,
Blending with sober grey, the western blaze!
O! prompt my Phaon's dreams with tend'rest lays,
Ere night o'er shade thee with its humid wings,
While the lorn Philomel his sorrow sings
In leafy cradle, red with parting rays!
Slow let thy dulcet tones on ether glide,
So...Read more of this...

To A Lady Playing The Harp

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Thy tones are silver melted into sound,
And as I dream
I see no walls around,
But seem to hear
A gondolier
Sing sweetly down some slow Venetian stream.
Italian skies—that I have never seen—
I see above.
(Ah, play again, my queen;
Thy fingers white
Fly swift and light
And weave for me the golden mesh of love.)
Oh, thou dusk sorceress of the dusky eyes
And soft dark hair,
'T is thou...Read more of this...

319. Lament for James Earl of Glencairn

by Robert Burns
 THE WIND blew hollow frae the hills,
 By fits the sun’s departing beam
Look’d on the fading yellow woods,
 That wav’d o’er Lugar’s winding stream:
Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard,
 Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewail’d his lord,
 Whom Death had all untimely ta’en.


He lean’d him to an ancient aik,
 Whose trunk was mould’ring down with years;
His...Read more of this...

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