Famous Awed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Frost at Midnight

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud---and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
`Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies

by Rainer Maria Rilke
The First Elegy


Who if I cried out would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me 
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
I that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror which we still are just able to endure
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel...Read more of this...

Milton's Appeal To Cromwell

by Victor Hugo
 ("Non! je n'y puis tenir.") 
 
 {CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.} 


 Stay! I no longer can contain myself, 
 But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind 
 To Oliver—to Cromwell, Milton speaks! 
 Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep 
 A voice is lifted up without your leave; 
 For I was never...Read more of this...

The Fortune-Favored

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
He learns life's...Read more of this...

shocked

by Rg Gregory
 the cupboard was done up
on the outside
in the brightest of colours

the house it was part of
was filled each day
with its loud exclamations

the sun looked in gladly
one morning and
fled (incredibly) dazzled

puzzled the people stared
up at the sun
nursing cursing its blindness

and many rumours spread.....
a cupboard that
had power to outshine the sun

must surely breed gold or
something godlike
behind such a brilliant door

a delegation...Read more of this...

The Mother Mourns

by Thomas Hardy
 When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time, 
 And sedges were horny, 
And summer's green wonderwork faltered 
 On leaze and in lane, 

I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly 
 Came wheeling around me 
Those phantoms obscure and insistent 
 That shadows unchain. 

Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me 
 A low lamentation, 
As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,...Read more of this...

Forgiveness

by George William Russell
 My heart was heavy, for its trust had been 
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong; 
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men, 
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among 
The green mounds of the village burial-place; 
Where, pondering how all human love and hate 
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late, 
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened...Read more of this...

Clancy Of The Mounted Police

by Robert William Service
 In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear
That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;
Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail--
In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"--
Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze,
Half round the world, if need there be, on...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave  
And spread the roof above them¡ªere he framed 
The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 5 
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down  
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And...Read more of this...

Orlie Wilde

by James Whitcomb Riley
 A goddess, with a siren's grace,--
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.

Wrought was she of a painter's dream,--
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.

I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece's history.
He turned--REturned--and thus beguiled
Me with the...Read more of this...

confession

by Louise Gluck
 for all my country poses
my cells belong to a town
grass is symbol-deep in me
but brick dips deeper down

mountains knock me sideways
a moor chills my bones
a field of wheat exults me
i'm awed by ancient stones

but lines of dowdy shop-fronts
mean unpolished streets
sever the green man in me
coddle my heart's retreats

my marrow's grey as asphalt
my brain's a shirley tram
the royal pier dreams...Read more of this...

Morning-Glory

by Siegfried Sassoon
 In this meadow starred with spring 
Shepherds kneel before their king. 
Mary throned, with dreaming eyes, 
Gowned in blue like rain-washed skies, 
Lifts her tiny son that he
May behold their courtesy. 
And green-smocked children, awed and good, 
Bring him blossoms from the wood. 

Clear the sunlit steeples chime 
Mary’s coronation-time.
Loud the happy children quire 
To the golden-windowed morn; 
While...Read more of this...

In the Matter of One Compass

by Rudyard Kipling
 When, foot to wheel and back to wind,
The helmsman dare not look behind,
But hears beyond his compass-light,
The blind bow thunder through the night,
And, like a harpstring ere it snaps,
The rigging sing beneath the caps;
 Above the shriek of storm in sail
 Or rattle of the blocks blown free,
 Set for the peace beyond the gale,
 This song the Needle...Read more of this...

December At Yase

by Gary Snyder
 You said, that October,
In the tall dry grass by the orchard
When you chose to be free,
"Again someday, maybe ten years."

After college I saw you
One time. You were strange,
And I was obsessed with a plan.

Now ten years and more have
Gone by: I've always known
 where you were—
I might have gone to you
Hoping to win your love back.
You still are single.

I...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
And spread the roof above them,---ere he framed 
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, 
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, 
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And supplication. For his...Read more of this...

Demeter And Persephone

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
Falls on the threshold of her native land,
And can no more, thou camest, O my child,
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,
Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb,
With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
When...Read more of this...

Thanatos Basileos

by Aleister Crowley
 The serpent dips his head beneath the sea
His mother, source of all his energy
Eternal, thence to draw the strength he needs
On earth to do indomitable dees
Once more; and they, who saw but understood
Naught of his nature of beatitude
Were awed: they murmured with abated breath;
Alas the Master; so he sinks in death.
But whoso knows the mystery of man
Sees life and...Read more of this...

Casey At The Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that...Read more of this...

The Trolls Nosegay

by Robert Graves
 A simple nosegay! Was that much to ask?
(Winter still nagged, with scarce a bud yet showing.)
He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.
'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.'
It seems my lady wept and the troll swore
By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen -
Where she had begged one flower he'd shower fourscore,
A bunch fit to...Read more of this...

My period had come for Prayer --

by Emily Dickinson
 My period had come for Prayer --
No other Art -- would do --
My Tactics missed a rudiment --
Creator -- Was it you?

God grows above -- so those who pray
Horizons -- must ascend --
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend --

His House was not -- no sign had He --
By Chimney -- nor by Door
Could I...Read more of this...

Pardoned Out

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 I’m pardoned out. Again the stars
Shine on me with their myriad eyes.
So long I’ve peered ‘twixt iron bars, 
I’m awed by this expanse of skies.
The world is wider than I thought, 
And yet ‘tis not so wide, I know, 
But into its remotest spot
My tale of shame can go.

I’m pardoned out. Old Father Time
Who seemed to halt in horror,...Read more of this...

Carmen De Boheme

by Hart Crane
 Sinuously winding through the room 
On smokey tongues of sweetened cigarettes, -- 
Plaintive yet proud the cello tones resume 
The andante of smooth hopes and lost regrets. 

Bright peacocks drink from flame-pots by the wall, 
Just as absinthe-sipping women shiver through 
With shimmering blue from the bowl in Circe's hall. 
Their brown eyes blacken, and the blue drop hue....Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so...Read more of this...

In Vision I Roamed

by Thomas Hardy
 IN vision I roamed the flashing Firmament,
So fierce in blazon that the Night waxed wan,
As though with an awed sense of such ostent;
And as I thought my spirit ranged on and on

In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky,
To the last chambers of the monstrous Dome,
Where stars the brightest here to darkness die:
Then, any spot on our own Earth...Read more of this...

The Ride of Paul Venarez

by Eben E. Rexford
1. Paul Venarez heard them say, in the frontier town that day,
That a band of Red Plume's warriors was upon the trail of death;
Heard them tell of a murder done: Three men killed at Rocky Run.
"They're in danger up at Crawford's," said Venarez, under breath.

2. "Crawford's"—thirty miles away—was a settlement, that lay
In a green and pleasant valley of the mighty...Read more of this...

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