Best Raven Poems

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
...

She walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
...

ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
   But in their hue;
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
...

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
...

Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.
...

(A great one while calling his barroness by these names...)

It was a scent...BUT not just any,...
her scent filled the air
...

Rintrah roars and shakes his
fires in the burdenM air,
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
...

In the evening, the passerby while lonely passing
Heard some noises of an unseen cart on other way
Which he mistook bone breaking, tearing, chopping,
Murmuring, rumbling, trembling sounds all around,
...

A lake and a fairy boat
To sail in the moonlight clear, -
And merrily we would float
From the dragons that watch us here!
...

Grief may have thought it was grief.
Care may have thought it was care.
They were welcome to their belief,
The overimportant pair.
...

When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,
Whom all do celebrate, who know they have one
(For who is sure he hath a soul, unless
It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,
...

I am in this low-slung sports car
painted a deep, rich yellow
driving under an Italian sun.
I have a British accent.
...

The clock has turned enough
to reach a planet
Life is endless night
I hear wings beating in
...

Fair was the evening and brightly the sun
Was shining on desert and grove,
Sweet were the breezes and balmy the flowers
And cloudless the heavens above.
...

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,
............Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
...

YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
...

The Bride and the Daughters of Jerusalem

The Song of songs, which is Solomon's.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:
...

Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
...

Comes the cold, black, Death of Autumn,
harbouring its' pique on naked limb;
stirring damp, feral winds
to the hawking, stalking,
...

While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
...

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
...

Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,
...

Jenny, your mind commands
kingdoms of black and white:
you shoulder the crow on your left,
the snowbird on your right;
...

I

A traveller on the skirt of Sarum's Plain
Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare;
...

What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
...

Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat
There in the holy house at Almesbury
Weeping, none with her save a little maid,
A novice: one low light betwixt them burned
...

Home, for my heart still calls me;
Home, through the danger zone;
Home, whatever befalls me,
I will sail again to my own!
...

The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink;
I heard a voice; it said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!"
And, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied
A snow-white mountain-lamb with a Maiden at its side.
...

I

Between two sister moorland rills
There is a spot that seems to lie
...

John Anderson my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonny brow was brent;
...

Sing, O Song of Hiawatha,
Of the happy days that followed,
In the land of the Ojibways,
In the pleasant land and peaceful!
...

Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
...

Remind me not, remind me not,
Of those beloved, those vanish'd hours,
When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
...

S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.
...

You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
...

Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn
From his displeasure; in whose look serene,
When angry most he seemed and most severe,
What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone?
...

Inscribed to Robert Aiken, Esq.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
...

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine,
A place where body saw na;
Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine
The gowden locks of Anna.
...

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
...

Call me away; there's nothing here,
That wins my soul to stay;
Then let me leave this prospect drear,
And hasten far away.
...

Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
Both current and ripple are dancing in light.
We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak
...

Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood
Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above
Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd
The stonie from thir hearts, and made new flesh
...

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
...

ON thy stupendous summit, rock sublime !
That o'er the channel rear'd, half way at sea
The mariner at early morning hails,
...

I.
Birds of omen dark and foul,
Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
Leave the sick man to his dream -
...

From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
...

Make no mistake dear passerby

It isn't Deaththat laughs like a raven
...

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair --
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
...

A BARKING sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts--and searches with his eyes
...

Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,
And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.
...

I. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND
OUTSIDE the garden
The wet skies harden;
The gates are barred on
...

I was but what you'd brush
with your palm, what your leaning
brow would hunch to in evening's
raven-black hush.
...

You look like a black rose
in full bloom.
Your pose and the clothes you wear
Make me stare.
...

I.

Where freezing wastes of dazzl'ing Snow
O'er LEMAN'S Lake rose, tow'ring;
...

I say I'm not a poet, For like of which I know it,
Rhymes absurd in metered word,
Describing not a poet
...

'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul's as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
...

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
...

Aubade

(1)
Twitter of sparrows
...

A raven, while with glossy breast
Her new-laid eggs she fondly press'd,
And, on her wicker-work high mounted,
Her chickens prematurely counted
...

HOW many singers before me! Are there yet songs unsung?

Dost thou, my sad soul, remember where was her dwelling place?
...

LARA. [1]

CANTO THE FIRST.
...

BOOK FIRST.

I.
...

The Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said,
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale,
...

'Croak, croak, croak,'
Thus the Raven spoke,
Perched on his crooked tree
As hoarse as hoarse could be.
...

Elijah's example declares,
Whatever distress may betide;
The saints may commit all their cares
To him who will surely provide:
...

"Had we never loved so kindly,
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — Burns
...

1

The chestnut steed stood by the gate
His noble master's will to wait,
...

You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
He, the handsome Yenadizze,
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,
Vexed the village with disturbance;
...

Inscribed to Robert Aiken, Esq.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
...

Love is a rebellious raven
That nobody can tame
Nothing helps, neither threat nor prayer
One man talks well to someone else dreams
...

Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strain
Ere PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wall
I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,
When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,
...

This is a day of happiness, sweet peace,
And heavenly sunshine; upon which conven'd
In full assembly fair, once more we view,
And hail with voice expressive of the heart,
...

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
...

SHE sat alone beside her hearth—
For many nights alone;
She slept not on the pleasant couch
...

I fell in love with a frog,
who was sitting alone on the banks of the Nile,
mooning over the premature decease of his beautiful wife.
...

Though the torrents from their fountains
Roar down many a craggy steep,
Yet they find among the mountains
Resting-places calm and deep.
...

'While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
...

Since morning, he started caw caw
On the plush white minaret
Too loud for other creatures
Despite being useless, why is he shouting?
...

CXXVII
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
...

1

Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest,
...

When Scotland's great Regent, our warrior most dear,
The debt of his nature did pay,
T' was Edward, the cruel, had reason to fear,
And cause to be struck with dismay.
...

A gypsy am I, as I rove on the downy dale;
Aside from the taverns, the fields are my only vale.
I drink from my carafe a fairy-fermented brew,
And I dream of fair love, beneath a radiant sky of blue.
...

This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
...

OH thou sweet maiden fair,
Thou with the raven hair,

Why to the window go?
...

Astonished I'm! No! World is distinct book
of deaths! Book of lives, of a child,
of a woman, of a man, of human.
...

We held hands with mixed emotions,
whispered words of surreptitious acts.
We sat, fingers crossed, promises hidden
within the circle of our confinement,
...

All my expectations plumb
the fallow heart and succumb
to that resignation that starts
to beat and hum and then charts
...

Oh, my beloved companion!
Oh thou of my existence,
The very heart and soul!
...

Seven stars in the still water,
And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King's daughter,
Deep in her soul to lie.
...

To-night I'll have my friar -- let me think
About my room, -- I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
...

Death went upon a solemn day
At Pluto's hall his court to pay;
The phantom having humbly kiss'd
His grisly monarch's sooty fist,
...

When first the fiery-mantled sun
His heavenly race begun to run;
Round the earth and ocean blue,
His children four the Seasons flew.
...

Meliboeus.
You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy
Reclining, on the slender oat rehearse
...

I.
Whom the untaught Shepherds call
Pixies in their madrigal,
Fancy's children, here we dwell:
...

God turne us every dreem to gode!
For hit is wonder, be the rode,
To my wit, what causeth swevens
Either on morwes, or on evens;
...

I
A HAPPY MAN
(Carphyllides)
...

Late autumns, winters, spring-times steeped in mud,
anaesthetizing seasons! You I praise, and love
for so enveloping my heart and brain
...

Dark HORROR, hear my call!
Stern Genius hear from thy retreat
On some old sepulchre's moss-cankered seat,
Beneath the Abbey's ivied wall
...

Said darling daughter unto me:
"oh Dad, how funny it would be
If you had gone to Mexico
A score or so of years ago.
...

She sat alway thro' the long day
Spinning the weary thread away;
And ever said in undertone:
'Come, that I be no more alone.'
...