Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Alder Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Kingsley, Charles
...d lea,
 A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
 For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
 And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
 For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
 A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
 For ever and for ever....Read more of this...



by Kipling, Rudyard
...hereby the ancientry
 Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Yew that is old in churchyard-mould,
 He breedeth a mighty bow.
Alder for shoes do wise men choose,
 And beech for cups also.
But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,
 And your shoes are clean outworn,
Back ye must speed for all that ye need,
 To Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!


Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth
 Till every gust be laid,
To drop a limb on the head of him
 That anyway trusts her shade:
But whe...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.

It lifts existence on a plane of snow
One level higher than the earth below,
One level nearer heaven overhead,
And last year's berries shining scarlet red.

It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast
Where he can stretch and hol...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ong order due, 
With cypress promenaded, 
The shock-head willows two and two 
By rivers gallopaded. 

Came wet-shod alder from the wave, 
Came yews, a dismal coterie; 
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave, 
Poussetting with a sloe-tree: 
Old elms came breaking from the vine, 
The vine stream'd out to follow, 
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine 
From many a cloudy hollow. 

And wasn't it a sight to see, 
When, ere his song was ended, 
Like some great landslip, t...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...-fern, 
Sang, and the sand danced at the bottom of it. 
And on the right of Balin Balin's horse 
Was fast beside an alder, on the left 
Of Balan Balan's near a poplartree. 
'Fair Sirs,' said Arthur, 'wherefore sit ye here?' 
Balin and Balan answered 'For the sake 
Of glory; we be mightier men than all 
In Arthur's court; that also have we proved; 
For whatsoever knight against us came 
Or I or he have easily overthrown.' 
'I too,' said Arthur, 'am of Arthur's hall...Read more of this...



by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...eeded by each one,
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me;
I...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...age sent?
Thy deathful bow against some deer-herd bent,
Sacred to Dian? Haply, thou hast seen
Her naked limbs among the alders green;
And that, alas! is death. No, I can trace
Something more high perplexing in thy face!"

 Endymion look'd at her, and press'd her hand,
And said, "Art thou so pale, who wast so bland
And merry in our meadows? How is this?
Tell me thine ailment: tell me all amiss!--
Ah! thou hast been unhappy at the change
Wrought suddenly in me. What ind...Read more of this...

by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...flake,
To cover all the corn; we walk upon
The shadow of hills across a level thrown,
And pant like climbers: near the alder brake
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would.
O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of GRIEF !--holy herein
That by the grief of ONE came all our good....Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...dere day er hym deuised were
Of sum auenturus thyng an vncouthe tale,
Of sum mayn meruayle, that he myyght trawe,
Of alderes, of armes, of other auenturus,
Other sum segg hym bisoyght of sum siker knyyght
To joyne wyth hym in iustyng, in jopardŽ to lay,
Lede, lif for lyf, leue vchon other,

As fortune wolde fulsun hom, the fayrer to haue.
This watz the kynges countenaunce where he in court were,
At vch farand fest among his fre meny
in halle.
Therfore of f...Read more of this...

by Moody, William Vaughn
...said, "Let be: 
Our ship sails faster thus." 

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue, 
Blue is the quaker-maid, 
The alder-clump where the brook comes through 
Breeds cresses in its shade. 
To be out of the moiling street 
With its swelter and its sin! 
Who has given to me this sweet, 
And given my brother dust to eat? 
And when will his wage come in? 

Scattering wide or blown in ranks, 
Yellow and white and brown, 
Boats and boats from the fishing banks 
Come home to...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ned, 
Leading downward to the river, 
To the ford across the river,
And as one in slumber walked he. 
Hidden in the alder-bushes,
There he waited till the deer came, 
Till he saw two antlers lifted, 
Saw two eyes look from the thicket, 
Saw two nostrils point to windward, 
And a deer came down the pathway, 
Flecked with leafy light and shadow. 
And his heart within him fluttered, 
Trembled like the leaves above him, 
Like the birch-leaf palpitated, 
As the deer came d...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...
And the strawberry, Odahmin, 
And the gooseberry, Shahbomin, 
And the grape.vine, the Bemahgut, 
Trailing o'er the alder-branches, 
Filling all the air with fragrance! 
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, 
"Must our lives depend on these things?"
On the third day of his fasting 
By the lake he sat and pondered, 
By the still, transparent water; 
Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, 
Scattering drops like beads of wampum, 
Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 
Like a sunbeam...Read more of this...

by Hill, Geoffrey
...the world could stir.
In March the ice unloosed the brook
And water ruffled the sun's hair.
Dead cones upon the alder shook....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ourselves to right the house,
The first thing in the morning, out we go
To go the round of apple, cherry, peach,
Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.
All of a farm it is.”

“I know this much:
I’m going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make you build it. Come, the light.”

When there was no more lantern in the kitchen,
The fire got out through crannies in the stove
And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,
As much at home as if they’d ...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...I will go to the lovely Sur Rivers
And dip my arms in them up to the shoulders.
I will find my accounting where the alder leaf quivers
In the ocean wind over the river boulders.
I will touch things and things and no more thoughts,
That breed like mouthless May-flies darkening the sky,
The insect clouds that blind our passionate hawks
So that they cannot strike, hardly can fly.
Things are the hawk's food and noble is the mountain, Oh noble
Pico Blanco, steep sea-wa...Read more of this...

by Heaney, Seamus
...A rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...es too, though in fear
They might find fuel there, in withered brake,
Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod,
And alder and grape vine entanglement,
To leap the dusty deadline. For my own
I took what front there was beside. I knelt
And thrust hands in and held my face away.
Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating.
A board is the best weapon if you have it.
I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew,
And said out loud, I couldn’t bide the smother
A...Read more of this...

by Nowlan, Alden
...d, and waited.

The neighbours heard of it, and by afternoon 
cars lined the road. The children teased him
with alder switches and he gazed at them 
like an old, tolerant collie. The woman asked 
if he could have escaped from a Fair.

The oldest man in the parish remembered seeing 
a gelded moose yoked with an ox for plowing.
The young men snickered and tried to pour beer
down his throat, while their girl friends took their pictures.

And the bull moos...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...And hir citee bisegede al a-boute,
Hir olde usage wolde they not letten, 
As for to honoure hir goddes ful devoute;
But aldermost in honour, out of doute,
They hadde a relik hight Palladion,
That was hir trist a-boven everichon.

And so bifel, whan comen was the tyme 
Of Aperil, whan clothed is the mede
With newe grene, of lusty Ver the pryme,
And swote smellen floures whyte and rede,
In sondry wyses shewed, as I rede,
The folk of Troye hir observaunces olde, 
Palladiones...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ou cannot move from the perron,
At the stars you marvel with your eyes.

Like a gray squirrel you'll jump on the alder,
Like a frightful swallow I will go,
I will then call for you like a swan,
So that the bridegroom would not fear
In the blue and swirling falling snow
To await his deceased bride alone.



x x x

Has my fate really been so altered,
Or is this game truly truly over?
Where are winters, when I fell asleep
In the morning in the sixth ho...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Alder poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs