Famous Song Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Song poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous song poems. These examples illustrate what a famous song poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Shakespeare, William
...Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their sa...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...the
carol of victory;
And strike up the marches of Libertad—marches more powerful yet;
And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of Democracy.
(Democracy—the destin’d conqueror—yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,
And Death and infidelity at every step.)
2
A Nation announcing itself,
I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.
A breed whose proof is in time and deed...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln's lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow
For Southwell's arch, and carved the House of One
Who loved the lilies of the field with all
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
Rises for us: the seasons natural
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:
The uncha...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...ll of joy and soft delicious warmth;
So that I felt a movement in my heart
To chide, and to reproach that solitude
With songs of misery, music of our woes;
And sat me down, and took a mouthed shell
And murmur'd into it, and made melody---
O melody no more! for while I sang,
And with poor skill let pass into the breeze
The dull shell's echo, from a bowery strand
Just opposite, an island of the sea,
There came enchantment with the shifting wind,
That did both drown and keep ali...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...he love-led studious hours and long
In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are,
Master and Author mine of Light and Song,
Befriend me now, who knew thy voice, that few
Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won
Is thine of right, from whom I learned. To thee,
Abashed, I grant it. . . Why the mounting sun
No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see
The beast that turned me, nor faint hope have I
To force that passage if thine aid deny.Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...
The rustling tapestry, and the echoing floor;
The long dim shadows of surrounding trees,
The flapping bat, the night song of the breeze;
Aught they behold or hear their thought appals
As evening saddens o'er the dark gray walls.
XVI.
Vain thought! that hour of ne'er unravell'd gloom
Came not again, or Lara could assume
A seeming of forgetfulness that made
His vassals more amazed nor less afraid —
Had memory vanish'd then with sense restored?
Since word, ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...p; My Hope, my Joy, my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The Songs, that make her grieve. I play'd a soft and doleful Air, I sang an old and moving Story— An old rude Song that fitted well The Ruin wild and hoary. She listen'd with a flitting Blush, With downcast Eyes and modest Grace; F...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...hing abhorred
And shunned of him, although a child of his,
(Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath,
Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).
Fearing to pass unvisited some place
And later learn, too late, how all the while,
With her still face,
She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile,
I sought her even to the sagging board whereat
The stout immortals sat;
But such a laughter shook the mighty hall
No one could hear me say:
...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
..., or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and
hill-sides;
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and
meeting the sun.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth
much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the ea...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...1
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth—that is sufficient;
...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...; or a serf of hut and croft
That sits by his hovel fire as oft,
But hears on his old bare roof aloft
A belfry burst in song.
"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gain,
The heaviest hind may easily
Come silently and suddenly
Upon me in a lane.
"And any little maid that walks
In good thoughts apart,
May break the guard of the Three Kings
And see the dear and dreadful things
I hid within my heart.
"The meanest man in grey fields gone
Behin...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...at rest,--
A grace of silence by the Greek unguesst,
That bloom'd to immortalize the Tuscan style
When first the angel-song that faith hath ken'd
Fancy pourtray'd, above recorded oath
Of Israel's God, or light of poem pen'd;
The very countenance of plighted troth
'Twixt heaven and earth, where in one moment blend
The hope of one and happiness of both.
8
For beauty being the best of all we know
Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims
Of nature, and on joys whose earthl...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...nt once.
"'Tis the note of the Jubjub! Keep count, I entreat;
You will find I have told it you twice.
Tis the song of the Jubjub! The proof is complete,
If only I've stated it thrice."
The Beaver had counted with scrupulous care,
Attending to every word:
But it fairly lost heart, and outgrabe in despair,
When the third repetition occurred.
It felt that, in spite of all possible pains,
It had somehow contrived to lose count,
And the only thing now was t...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...travellers homeward wend; The owls have hooted all night long, And with the owls began my song, And with the owls must end. For while they all were travelling home, Cried Betty, "Tell us Johnny, do, Where all this long night you have been, What you have heard, what you have seen, And Johnny, mind you tell us true." Now John...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...d pale as ashes cold,
And solitary he was, ever alone,
And wailing all the night, making his moan.
And if he hearde song or instrument,
Then would he weepen, he might not be stent*. *stopped
So feeble were his spirits, and so low,
And changed so, that no man coulde know
His speech, neither his voice, though men it heard.
And in his gear* for all the world he far'd *behaviour
Not only like the lovers' malady
Of Eros, but rather y-like manie* *madness
Engender'...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...of Hell: which the world shall have
whether they will or no.
One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression
PLATE 25
A Song of Liberty
The Eternal Female groand! it was heard over all the Earth:
Albions coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!
Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers
and mutter across the ocean! France rend down thy dungeon;
Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down falling, even to
et...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...aghast,
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
As when to greet some conqueror's advance
Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
From senatehouse & prison & theatre
When Freedom left those who upon the free
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the true similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
The chario...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...e spread throughout the throng.
Which seem'd to hold all verse in detestation;
The angels had of course enough of song
When upon service; and the generation
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long
Before, to profit by a new occasion;
The monarch, mute till then, exclaim'd, 'What! What!
Pye come again? No more — no more of that!'
XCIII
The tumult grew; an universal cough
Convulsed the skies, as during a debate
When Castlereagh has been up long enough
(...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
... The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run s...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...at all
But then when we started to lose one thing after another,
Each day became
A memorial day --
And then we made songs
Of great divine generosity
And of our former riches.
Unification
I'll leave your quiet yard and your white house -
Let life be empty and with light complete.
I'll sing the glory to you in my verse
Like not one woman has sung glory yet.
And that dear girlfriend you remember
In heaven you created for her sight,
I'm trading p...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Song poems.