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Famous Yearns Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.
All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know
Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.
The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea's labour and rage,
Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.
No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,
Illimi...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles



...sole 
in the blue 
night 

             amorous of waters 
tremulous, 
blinded with silence the 
undulous heaven yearns where 

in tense starlessness 
anoint with ardor 
the yellow lover 

stands in the dumb dark 
svelte 
and 
urgent 

           (again 
love i slowly 
gather 
of thy languorous mouth the 

thrilling 
flower)...Read more of this...
by Cummings, Edward Estlin (E E)
...lind planet knows
When her ruler is nigh;
And, attuned since Creation
To perfect accord,
She thrills in her station
And yearns to her Lord.

The waters have risen,
The springs are unbound--
The floods break their prison,
And ravin around.
No rampart withstands 'em,
Their fury will last,
Till the Sign that commands 'em
Sinks low or swings past.

Through abysses unproven
And gulfs beyond thought,
Our portion is woven,
Our burden is brought.
Yet They that prepare it,
Whose Natur...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
...mourns; 
 But bending us-ward with memorial urns 
The most high Muses that fulfil all ages 
 Weep, and our God's heart yearns. 

For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often 
 Among us darkling here the lord of light 
 Makes manifest his music and his might 
In hearts that open and in lips that soften 
 With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine. 
 Thy lips indeed he touch'd with bitter wine, 
And nourish'd them indeed with bitter bread; 
 Yet surely from his hand th...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...trade we're plying, 
God has willed it so; 
Shrouds are what we're buying 
For friends that come and go. 

Man forever yearns 
For the thing that's flying. 
Everywhere he turns, 
Men to dust are drying, -- 
Dust that wanders, eying 
(With eyes that hardly glow) 
New faces, dimly spying 
For friends that come and go. 

ENVOY

And thus we all are nighing 
The truth we fear to know: 
Death will end our crying 
For friends that come and go....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington



...ns walking 
 on his head 

This one turns into an ear 
He hears all that won't let itself be heard 
But he grows bored 
Yearns to turn again into himself 
But without eyes he can't see how 

That one bares all his faces 
One after the other he throws them over the roof 
The last one he throws under his feet 
And sinks his head into his hands 

This one stretches his sight 
Stretches it from thumb to thumb 
Walks over it walks 
First slow then fast 
Then faster and faster 

Th...Read more of this...
by Popa, Vasko
...evelry, vibrates and sobs 
One fundamental chord of constant pain, 
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs. 
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice, 
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice. 


II

Who shall proclaim the golden fable false 
Of Orpheus' miracles? This subtle strain 
Above our prose-world's sordid loss and gain 
Lightly uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz, 
The lyric prelude, the nocturnal song 
Of love and languor, varied visions rise, 
Th...Read more of this...
by Lazarus, Emma
...s stead,
And urgent through the growing gold
Strikes, and sees all the spray flash red,
And his soul takes the sun, and yearns
For joy wherewith the sea's heart burns;

So the soul seeking through the dark
Heavenward, a dove without an ark,
Transcends the unnavigable sea
Of years that wear out memory;
So calls, a sunward-singing lark,
In the ear of souls that should be free;
So points them toward the sun for mark
Who steer not for the stress of waves,
And seek strange helmsme...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...sy hour between the day and night,
The wakeful hour between the night and day,--
Imprisoned, waits for thee,
Impatient, yearns for thee,
The queen who comes to set the captive free
Thou lendest wings to grief to fly away,
And wings to joy to reach a heavenly height;
And every dumb desire that Storms within the breast
Thou leadest forth to sob or sing itself to rest.

All these are thine, and therefore love is thine.
For love is joy and grief,
And trembling doubt, and certain-...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van
...e deep gaze 
Of the old wolf? Amaze, 
Hope, recognition, gladness, anger, fear. 
But deeper than all these 
Love muses, yearns, and sees, 
And is the self that does not change nor veer. 

Not love of self alone, 
Struggle for lair and bone, 
But self-denying love of mate and young, 
Love that is kind and wise, 
Knows trust and sacrifice, 
And croons the old dark universal tongue.… 

And who has understood 
Our brothers of the wood, 
Save he who puts off guile and every guise ...Read more of this...
by Carman, Bliss
...,--I trust what Thou shalt do!'

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest;
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
'Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!'
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry 'All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!'

Theref...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert
...s own natural sapping
and from the earth reorganise that mapping
that reaches out to plot those far endeavours
a spirit yearns for (wishing its forevers)

so walk away – no spread of simple flowers
can change the limitations we must live with
snowdrops come and go – our fickle powers
play havoc with the talents we can thrive with
it’s just that february comes and lo - forthwith
for one brief snowdrop moment there’s a blaze
that lights the world up with its splash of praise...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg
...And the flowers sleep. But he responds not, 
For his fear over what the morrow will Bring, 
shadows his thoughts. 


He yearns to love me; 
He asks for me in this own acts. But he 
Will find me not except in God's acts. 
He seeks me in the edifices of his glory 
Which he has built upon the bones of others; 
He whispers to me from among 
His heaps of gold and silver; 
But he will find me only by coming to 
The house of Simplicity which God has built 
At the brink of the stream...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil
...ds alike --
That deeper than our speech and thought,
 Beyond our reason's sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
 Yearns to its fellow-clay.

God gives all men all earth to love,
 But, since man's heart is smal,
Ordains for each one spot shal prove
 Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
 The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground --
 Yea, Sussex by the sea!...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard
..., 
From eastern end to western of his way, 
So mine eye follows thee, my sunflower, 
So the white star-flower turns and yearns to thee, 
The sick weak weed, not well alive or dead, 
Trod under foot if any pass by her, 
Pale, without color of summer or summer breath 
In the shrunk shuddering petals, that have done 
No work but love, and die before the day. 

But thou, to-day, to-morrow, and every day, 
Be glad and great, O love whose love slays me. 
Thy fervent flower made fru...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...hat heaven is lit from in such wise.
O thou her dearest birth,
Turn thee to lighten earth,
Earth too that bore thee and yearns to thee and cries;
Stand up, shine, lighten, become flame,
Till as the sun's name through all nations be thy name.



I take the trumpet from my lips and sing.
O life immeasurable and imminent love,
And fear like winter leading hope like spring,
Whose flower-bright brows the day-star sits above,
Whose hand unweariable and untiring wing
Strike music fr...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...rlier friends the good the kind  
Yielded to thee with tears¡ª 15 
The venerable form the exalted mind. 

My spirit yearns to bring 
The lost ones back¡ªyearns with desire intense  
And struggles hard to wring 
Thy bolts apart and pluck thy captives thence. 20 

In vain; thy gates deny 
All passage save to those who hence depart; 
Nor to the streaming eye 
Thou giv'st them back¡ªnor to the broken heart. 

In thy abysses hide 25 
Beauty and excellence unknown; t...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen
...tired of feeling nerves 
Mildly made happy with soft jewels of silk, 
Odours and wines and slim lascivious girls, 
And yearns for sharper thrills to pierce his brain, 
He often finds a stranger handy then. 

Thomas 
Why, what do you mean? 

Captain There was a merchant came 
To Travancore, and could not speak our talk; 
And, it chanced, he was brought before the throne 
Just when the king was weary of sweet pleasures. 
So, to better his tongue, a rope was bent 
Beneath his o...Read more of this...
by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...

"Thought in the mind doth still abide
That is by Intellect supplied,
And within that Idea doth hide: 

"And he, that yearns the truth to know,
Still further inwardly may go,
And find Idea from Notion flow: 

"And thus the chain, that sages sought,
Is to a glorious circle wrought,
For Notion hath its source in Thought." 

So passed they on with even pace:
Yet gradually one might trace
A shadow growing on his face. 


The Second Voice 


THEY walked beside the wave-worn beac...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...ts come up, 
He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; 
She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, 
Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; 
And with a silent, gliding step they move 
Over the footlights, in familiar glare, 
Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love, 
He fawning close on her with idiot stare. 
Swiftly they cross the stage. O lyric ease! 
The drunken music follows the sure feet, 
The swaying elbows, intergliding knees, 
Moving with slow precision on th...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry