Famous Astir Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Astir poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous astir poems. These examples illustrate what a famous astir poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...eliness my soul could daunt.
For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.
I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk within his cell;
But now the dream is lost, and hell
Holds me her captive tight and fast
Who prays and struggles for the past.
No living maid has charmed my eyes,
But now, my soul is wonder-wise.
For I have dreamed of...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...w the girl Aillinn
Rode from the country of her kin,
And old and young men rode with her:
For all that country had been astir
If anybody half as fair
Had chosen a husband anywhere
But where it could see her every day.
When they had ridden a little way
An old man caught the horse's head
With: "You must home again, and wed
With somebody in your own land."
A young man cried and kissed her hand,
"O lady, wed with one of us";
And when no face grew piteous
For any gentle th...Read more of this...
by
Tagore, Rabindranath
...ard
and thy messenger has come within my heart and called me in secret.
I know not only why today my life is all astir,
and a feeling of tremulous joy is passing through my heart.
It is as if the time were come to wind up my work,
and I feel in the air a faint smell of thy sweet presence....Read more of this...
by
Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...ns and wanes;
Before us the sun will rise, deep-purpling headland and islet,
It is well to meet him thus, with the life astir in our veins!
The wakening birds will sing for us in the woods wind-shaken,
And the solitude of the hills will be broken by hymns to the light,
As we sweep past drowsing hamlets, still feathered by dreams of slumber,
And leave behind us the shadows that fell with the falling of night.
The young day's strength is ours in sinew and thew and muscl...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...eet air the Basin of Minas,
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at anchor.
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labor
Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of the morning.
Now from the country around, from the farms and neighboring hamlets,
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants.
Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk
Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,---
And the sweet white brow is all of her.
III.
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew---
And, just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was nought to each, must I be...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...y
Some distant bells clang out. The mountains gray
Have scarlet tips, proclaiming dawning day;
The hamlets are astir, and crowds come out—
Bearing fresh branches of the broom—about
To seek their Lady, who herself awakes
Rosy as morn, just when the morning breaks;
Half-dreaming still, she ponders, can it be
Some mystic change has passed, for her to see
One old man in the place of two quite young!
Her wondering eyes search carefully and long.
It...Read more of this...
by
Bronte, Charlotte
...as he.
New scenes, new language, skies less clouded,
May once more wake the wish to live;
Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded,
New pictures to the mind may give.
New forms and faces, passing ever,
May hide the one I still retain,
Defined, and fixed, and fading never,
Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain.
And we might meettime may have changed him;
Chance may reveal the mystery,
The secret influence which estranged him;
Love may restore him yet ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Sycamore --
Screams Chanticleer
"Who's there"?
And Echoes -- Trains away,
Sneer -- "Where"!
While the old Couple, just astir,
Fancy the Sunrise -- left the door ajar!...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...It's all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,—
I care not who first taught 'em;
There's nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You'll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.
Now purple tints are all a...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...It's all a farce,—these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,—
I care not who first taught 'em;
There's nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You'll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.
Now pu...Read more of this...
by
Hayden, Robert
...Her sleeping head with its great gelid mass
of serpents torpidly astir
burned into the mirroring shield--
a scathing image dire
as hated truth the mind accepts at last
and festers on.
I struck. The shield flashed bare.
Yet even as I lifted up the head
and started from that place
of gazing silences and terrored stone,
I thirsted to destroy.
None could have passed me then--
no garland-bearing girl, no pries...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Remorse -- is Memory -- awake --
Her Parties all astir --
A Presence of Departed Acts --
At window -- and at Door --
Its Past -- set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match --
Perusal -- to facilitate --
And help Belief to stretch --
Remorse is cureless -- the Disease
Not even God -- can heal --
For 'tis His institution -- and
The Adequate of Hell --...Read more of this...
by
Reese, Lizette Woodworth
...still in grass or bough,
So, somewhat of the end o' June
Lurks in each weather now.
The young year sets the buds astir,
The old year strips the trees;
But ever in my lavender
I hear the brawling bees.
For me the jasmine buds unfold
And silver daisies star the lea,
The crocus hoards the sunset gold,
And the wild rose breathes for me.
I feel the sap through the bough returning,
I share the skylark's transport fine,
I know the fountain's wayward yearning,
I...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
..., headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line -- drifted snow and naked boulders --
Felt free air astir to windward -- knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.
'Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Norther found me --
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me: --
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"
Then I ...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.
Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure p...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Duncan Campbell
...
Lifting the rich heads,
Tossing them soothingly
Twinkle and shimmer
The lights and the shadowings,
Nimble as moonlight
Astir in the mere.
Laden with odors
Of peace and of plenty,
Soft comes the wind
From the ranks of the wheat-field,
Bearing a promise
Of harvest and sickle-time,
Opulent threshing-floors
Dusty and dim
With the whirl of the flail,
And wagons of bread,
Sown-laden and lumbering
Through the gateways of cities.
When will the reapers
Strike in their sic...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...the Hills)
In the name of the Empress of India, make way,
O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam.
The woods are astir at the close of the day --
We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.
Let the robber retreat -- let the tiger turn tail --
In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!
With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in,
He turns to the foot-path that heads up the hill --
The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin,
And, tucked in his waist-b...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...thinking of this need, and now he could not find
Platter or saucer rare enough to ease his mind.
The house was not astir, and he dared not go down
Into the barn-chamber, lest some door should be blown
And slam before the draught he made as he went out.
The light was growing yellower, and still he looked about.
A flash of almost crimson from the gilded pear
Upon the music-stand, startled him waiting there.
The sun would rise and he would meet it unprepared,
La...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...of the thin veil behind whose beaded strands
A radiant visage rose, serene, august, divine.
A noise of summer wind astir in starlit trees,
A song where sensual love's delirium rose and fell,
Were rites that moved my soul more than the devotee's
When from the blazing choir rings out the altar bell.
I woke amid the pomp of a proud palace; writ
In tinted arabesque on walls that gems o'erlay,
The names of caliphs were who once held court in it,
Their baths and bowers we...Read more of this...
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