Famous Torrent Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Torrent poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous torrent poems. These examples illustrate what a famous torrent poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THE SHADES of night were falling fast
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth who bore 'mid snow and ice
A banner with the strange device
Excelsior! 5
His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.
Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves...Read more of this...
by
Weldon Kees
To Ernest Brace
"And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was
about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto
me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and
write them not." --REVELATIONS, x, 4.
That raft we rigged up, under the water,
Was just the item: when he walked,
With his robes blowing, dark against the sky,
It...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1869, and on the 19th of November,
Which the people in Southern Germany will long remember,
The great rain-storm which for twenty hours did pour down,
That the rivers were overflowed and petty streams all around.
The rain fell in such torrents as had never been seen before,
That it seemed like a second deluge, the mighty torrents'...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A hush is over all the teeming lists,
And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
Laments the passing of her noblest born.
She weeps for him a mother's burning tears--
She loved him with a mother's deepest love
He was her champion thro' direful...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time's ears
Youth's dreams hung singing, and Time's truth
Was half not harsh in the...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Put a cup of wine in my hand, for my heart is inflamed,
and my life slips away as quicksilver. Arise,
then, for the favors of fortune are only a dream; arise,
for the fire of thy youth is running away like the water
of a torrent....Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
Recite the loves of Narva and Mored
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said.
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung,
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung:
In all the mystic mazes of the dance,
The youths of Banny's burning sands advance,
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind,
And rides upon the pinions of the...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
There were still shards of an ancient pastoral
in those shires of the island where the cattle drank
their pools of shadow from an older sky,
surviving from when the landscape copied such objects as
"Herefords at Sunset in the valley of the Wye."
The mountain water that fell white from the mill wheel
sprinkling like petals from the...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Carew
Give me more love or more disdain;
The torrid, or the frozen zone,
Bring equal ease unto my pain;
The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love, or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.
Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danae in that golden show'r
I swim in pleasure; if it prove
Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture-hopes; and he's possess'd
Of heaven,...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
I stood musing in a black world,
Not knowing where to direct my feet.
And I saw the quick stream of men
Pouring ceaselessly,
Filled with eager faces,
A torrent of desire.
I called to them,
"Where do you go? What do you see?"
A thousand voices called to me.
A thousand fingers pointed.
"Look! look! There!"
I know not of it.
But, lo! In the far sky shone a radiance
Ineffable,...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,
In its halls renowned in old story,
At the coronation banquet so gay
King Rudolf was sitting in glory.
The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,
The Bohemian poured out the bright sparkling wine,
And all the Electors, the seven,
Stood waiting around the world-governing one,
As the chorus of stars encircle the sun,
That honor might duly be given.
And...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The shades of night had fallen at last,
When through the house a shadow passed,
That once had been the Genial Dan,
But now become a desperate man,
At question time he waited near,
And on the Premier's startled ear
A voice fell like half a brick --
"Did ye, or did ye not, pay Crick
Did ye?"
By...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
The First Elegy
Who if I cried out would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
I that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror which we still are just able to endure
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel...Read more of this...
by
Adam Lindsay Gordon
They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds.
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Bring wine! my heart with dancing spirits teems,
Wake! fortune's waking is as fleeting dreams;
Quicksilver-like our days are swift of foot,
And youthful fire subsides as torrent streams....Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1887, and on the 28th of September,
Which many people of Honan, in China, will long remember;
Especially those that survived the mighty deluge,
That fled to the mountains, and tops of trees, for refuge.
The river burst its embankments suddenly at dead of night,
And the rushing torrent swept all before it left and right;
All over the...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 5
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley,...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
I found a torrent falling in a glen
Where the sun’s light shone silvered and leaf-split;
The boom, the foam, and the mad flash of it
All made a magic symphony; but when
I thought upon the coming of hard men
To cut those patriarchal trees away,
And turn to gold the silver of that spray,
I shuddered. Yet a...Read more of this...
by
Richard Wilbur
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,
Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.
Nor shall you...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
This poem must be done to-day;
Then, I 'll e'en to it.
I must not dream my time away,—
I 'm sure to rue it.
The day is rather bright, I know
The Muse will pardon
My half-defection, if I go
Into the garden.
It must be better working there,—
I 'm sure it's sweeter:
And something in the balmy air
May clear my metre.
[In the Garden.]
Ah this is noble, what...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
I bring ye wine from above,
From the vats of the storied sun;
For every one of yer love,
And life for every one.
Ye shall dance on hill and level;
Ye shall sing in hollow and height
In the festal mystical revel,
The rapurous Bacchanal rite!
The rocks and trees are yours,
And the waters under the hill,
By the might of that which endures,
The holy heaven of...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Souvent quand mon esprit riche.")
{VII., May 18, 1828.}
When my mind, on the ocean of poesy hurled,
Floats on in repose round this wonderful world,
Oft the sacred fire from heaven—
Mysterious sun, that gives light to the soul—
Strikes mine with its ray, and above the pole
Its upward...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
The Vanishing
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,
And the Beaver, excited at last,
Went bounding along on the tip of its tail,
For the daylight...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My life lasts but a day or two, and fast
Sweeps by, like torrent stream or desert blast,
Howbeit, of two days I take no heed,—
The day to come, and that already past....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Torrent poems.