Lyrical Poetry — Definition and Examples
What is a lyric poem?
Lyric poetry consists of a short poem that often has musical qualities and conveys the writer’s personal emotions. Due to their song-like characteristics, lyrical poems were often sung and accompanied by a stringed instrument such as a harp or a lyre.
Unlike narrative poetry, lyrical poems do not have to tell a story. Lyric poets may use multiple literary devices to give the poem its song-like rhythm.
Types of lyrical poetry
The following types of poems are categorized as lyrical:
Sonnet: A sonnet is a 14-lined poem with a set rhyme scheme and rhythm. This form of lyrical poetry typically revolves around the idea of love. There are slight variations in stanza structure between English and Italian or Petrarchan sonnets.
Elegy: Classic elegies contain four lines with an ABAB rhyme scheme and are typically written in iambic pentameter. However, the poetic form is not required to have only four lines. Elegies lament the death of their subject and often end in solace.
Ode: An ode is a short poem that celebrates a person, event, nature, or idea. There are three categories of odes: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular. Odes have a serious tone and are considered a formal poetic form.
Characteristics of lyric poetry
Lyrical poetry typically incorporates the following characteristics:
Point of View: Since the work’s content expresses the poet’s emotions, lyrical poems are written from the first-person point of view.
Length: Although not a requirement, lyrical poetry is generally rather short.
Simplistic: Poets often use simplistic language in a lyrical poem, making it easier for a general reader to understand.
Content: Due to the poet’s use of their own emotions, lyrical poems are subjective. They are intimately connected to the poet’s thoughts and are considered a private expression of their feelings.
Musical: The poet’s use of rhyme, rhythm, and sound devices (alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, etc.) gives lyrical poetry a musical structure.
Passion: The emotional nature of a lyrical poem leads the work to be intensely passionate. Therefore, most poets choose words and images that enhance the expressiveness of their work.
Lyrical poem examples
The following sonnet excerpts (lines 1-4) are examples of the lyrical form:
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date…
Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
Sonnet 19 by John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
The following elegy excerpts are examples of lyrical poetry:
“Oh Captain! My Captain!” By Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
“To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
“In Memoriam” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
The following ode excerpts are examples of lyric form:
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
“Ode: Intimations of Immortality” by William Wordsworth
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.