Famous Arbor Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hortus

by Andrew Marvell
 Quisnam adeo, mortale genus, praecordia versat:
Heu Palmae, Laurique furor, vel simplicis Herbae!
Arbor ut indomitos ornet vix una labores;
Tempora nec foliis praecingat tota maglignis.
Dum simud implexi, tranquillae ad ferta Quiaetis,
Omnigeni coeunt Flores, integraque Sylva.
Alma Quies, teneo te! & te Germana Quietis
Simplicitas! Vos ergo diu per Templa, per urbes,
Quaesivi, Regum perque alta Palatia frustra.
Sed vos Hotrorum per opaca siluentia longe
Celarant Plantae...Read more of this...

Vaudeville Dancer

by Carl Sandburg
 ELSIE FLIMMERWON, you got a job now with a jazz outfit in vaudeville.

The houses go wild when you finish the act shimmying a fast shimmy to The Livery Stable Blues.

It is long ago, Elsie Flimmerwon, I saw your mother over a washtub in a grape arbor when your father came with the locomotor ataxia shuffle.

It is long ago, Elsie,...Read more of this...

Je Suis une table

by Donald Hall
 It has happened suddenly,
by surprise, in an arbor,
or while drinking good coffee,
after speaking, or before,

that I dumbly inhabit
a density; in language,
there is nothing to stop it,
for nothing retains an edge.

Simple ignorance presents,
later, words for a function,
but it is common pretense
of speech, by a convention,

and there is nothing at all
but inner silence, nothing
to relieve on principle
now this intense thickening....Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

Washington McNeely

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Rich, honored by my fellow citizens,
The father of many children, born of a noble mother,
All raised there
In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town.
Note the cedar tree on the lawn!
I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford,
The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors --
Resting under my cedar tree...Read more of this...

Hospital Window

by Allen Ginsberg
At gauzy dusk, thin haze like cigarette smoke 
ribbons past Chrysler Building's silver fins 
tapering delicately needletopped, Empire State's 
taller antenna filmed milky lit amid blocks 
black and white apartmenting veil'd sky over Manhattan, 
offices new built dark glassed in blueish heaven--The East 
50's & 60's covered with castles & watertowers, seven storied 
tar-topped house-banks over York Avenue, late may-green...Read more of this...

Sonnet CCXXV

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 226] SONNET CCXXV. Arbor vittoriosa e trionfale. HE EXTOLS THE VIRTUE OF LAURA.  Tree, victory's bright guerdon, wont to crownHeroes and bards with thy triumphal leaf,How many days of mingled joy and griefHave I from thee through life's short passage known.Lady, who, reckless of the world's renown,Read more of this...

Paris

by Alan Seeger
 First, London, for its myriads; for its height, 
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; 
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths 
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . . 


Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days 
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays 
Than, having beauty and your twenty years, 
You have the means...Read more of this...

Give me the Splendid Silent Sun

by Walt Whitman
 1
GIVE me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling; 
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard; 
Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows; 
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape; 
Give me fresh corn and wheat—give me serene-moving animals, teaching content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLVI

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 61] SONNET XLVI. L' arbor gentil che forte amai molt' anni. IMPRECATION AGAINST THE LAUREL.  The graceful tree I loved so long and well,Ere its fair boughs in scorn my flame declined,Beneath its shade encouraged my poor mindTo bud and bloom, and 'mid its sorrow swell.But now,...Read more of this...

The Bull Of Bendylaw

by Sylvia Plath
 The black bull bellowed before the sea.
The sea, till that day orderly,
Hove up against Bendylaw.

The queen in the mulberry arbor stared
Stiff as a queen on a playing card.
The king fingered his beard.

A blue sea, four horny bull-feet,
A bull-snouted sea that wouldn't stay put,
Bucked at the garden gate.

Along box-lined walks in the florid sun
Toward the rowdy bellow and back again
The...Read more of this...

The White Peacock

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 (France -- Ancient Regime.) 

I.

Go away! 
Go away; I will not confess to you! 
His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers the beads shiver and click, 
As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him; 
I will not confess! . . . 

Is he there or is it intenser shadow? 
Dark huddled...Read more of this...

The Poet VIII

by Kahlil Gibran
 He is a link between this and the coming world. 
He is 
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. 


He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing 
Fruit which the hungry heart craves; 
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed 
Spirit with his beautiful melodies; 
He is a white cloud appearing over the...Read more of this...

Laughter and Tears IX

by Kahlil Gibran
 As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of...Read more of this...

Colors Passing Through Us

by Marge Piercy
 Purple as tulips in May, mauve 
into lush velvet, purple 
as the stain blackberries leave 
on the lips, on the hands, 
the purple of ripe grapes 
sunlit and warm as flesh. 
Every day I will give you a color, 
like a new flower in a bud vase 
on your desk. Every day 
I will paint you, as women 
color...Read more of this...

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