Famous Before Noon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Inspiration

by Henry David Thoreau
 Whate'er we leave to God, God does, 
And blesses us; 
The work we choose should be our own, 
God leaves alone. 
If with light head erect I sing, 
Though all the Muses lend their force, 
From my poor love of anything, 
The verse is weak and shallow as its source. 

But if with bended neck I grope 
Listening behind...Read more of this...

The Den o Fowlis

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Den o' Fowlis, most charming to be seen
In the summer season, when your trees are green;
Especially in the bright and clear month of June,
When your flowere and shrubberies are in full bloom. 

There visitors can enjoy themselves during the holidays,
And be shaded by the trees from the sun's rays,
And admire the beautiful primroses that grow there;
And inhale their...Read more of this...

A Noon Song

by Henry Van Dyke
 There are songs for the morning and songs for the night, 
For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon; 
But who will give praise to the fulness of light, 
And sing us a song of the glory of noon? 
Oh, the high noon, the clear noon, 
The noon with golden crest; 
When the blue sky burns, and the...Read more of this...

Nirvana

by Sidney Lanier
 Through seas of dreams and seas of phantasies,
Through seas of solitudes and vacancies,
And through my Self, the deepest of the seas,
I strive to thee, Nirvana.

Oh long ago the billow-flow of sense,
Aroused by passion's windy vehemence,
Upbore me out of depths to heights intense,
But not to thee, Nirvana.

By waves swept on, I learned to ride the waves.
I served my masters till...Read more of this...

Song. That Women Are But Men's Shadows

by Ben Jonson
  VII. — SONG. — THAT WOMEN ARE BUT MEN'SSHADOWS.      Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then,                     5 Styl'd but the shadows of us men ?  At morn and even shades are longest ;     At noon they are or short, or none : So men at weakest, they are strongest,...Read more of this...

A Noon Interval

by James Whitcomb Riley
 A deep, delicious hush in earth and sky -- 
A gracious lull--since, from its wakening, 
The morn has been a feverish, restless thing 
In which the pulse of Summer ran too high 
And riotous, as though its heart went nigh 
To bursting with delights past uttering: 
Now--as an o'erjoyed child may cease to sing 
All falteringly at play, with...Read more of this...

The Noon Hour

by Carl Sandburg
 SHE sits in the dust at the walls
And makes cigars,
Bending at the bench
With fingers wage-anxious,
Changing her sweat for the day's pay.

Now the noon hour has come,
And she leans with her bare arms
On the window-sill over the river,
Leans and feels at her throat
Cool-moving things out of the free open ways:

At her throat and eyes and nostrils
The touch and the blowing...Read more of this...

Mater Triumphalis

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Mother of man's time-travelling generations,
Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,
God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,
Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.

Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder
Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.

Angels and Gods, spirit...Read more of this...

Silent Noon

by Christina Rossetti
 Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, - 
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: 
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. 
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge 
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 
'Tis visible silence, still...Read more of this...

The Task: Book VI The Winter Walk at Noon (excerpts)

by William Cowper
 Thus heav'nward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor'd.
So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else
In his dishonour'd works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and...Read more of this...

As plan for Noon and plan for Night

by Emily Dickinson
 As plan for Noon and plan for Night
So differ Life and Death
In positive Prospective --
The Foot upon the Earth

At Distance, and Achievement, strains,
The Foot upon the Grave
Makes effort at conclusion
Assisted faint of Love....Read more of this...

Youll know it -- as you know tis Noon

by Emily Dickinson
 You'll know it -- as you know 'tis Noon --
By Glory --
As you do the Sun --
By Glory --
As you will in Heaven --
Know God the Father -- and the Son.

By intuition, Mightiest Things
Assert themselves -- and not by terms --
"I'm Midnight" -- need the Midnight say --
"I'm Sunrise" -- Need the Majesty?

Omnipotence -- had not a Tongue --
His...Read more of this...

The Hag

by Robert Herrick
 The Hag is astride,
This night for to ride,
The devil and she together;
Through thick and through thin,
Now out, and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a bur
She takes for a spur;
With a lash of a bramble she rides now,
Through brakes and through briars,
O'er ditches and mires,
She follows the spirit that guides now.

No beast, for his food,
Dares...Read more of this...

Two butterflies went out at Noon --

by Emily Dickinson
 Two butterflies went out at Noon --
And waltzed upon a Farm --
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested, on a Beam --

And then -- together bore away
Upon a shining Sea --
Though never yet, in any Port --
Their coming, mentioned -- be --

If spoken by the distant Bird --
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman --
No notice --...Read more of this...

It bloomed and dropt a Single Noon --

by Emily Dickinson
 It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon --
The Flower -- distinct and Red --
I, passing, thought another Noon
Another in its stead

Will equal glow, and thought no More
But came another Day
To find the Species disappeared --
The Same Locality --

The Sun in place -- no other fraud
On Nature's perfect Sum --
Had I but lingered Yesterday --
Was my retrieveless blame --

Much Flowers...Read more of this...

A Shade upon the mind there passes

by Emily Dickinson
 A Shade upon the mind there passes
As when on Noon
A Cloud the mighty Sun encloses
Remembering

That some there be too numb to notice
Oh God
Why give if Thou must take away
The Loved?...Read more of this...

Written among the Euganean Hills North Italy

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
MANY a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of Misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 5 
Drifting on his dreary way, 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track; 
Whilst above, the sunless sky 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10 
And...Read more of this...

Far Within Us #7

by Vasko Popa
 Toothed eyes fly
Over still waters

Around us purple lips
Flutter from branches

Screams hit the blue
And fall onto pillows

Our homes hide
Behind narrow backs

Hands clutch at
Flimsy clouds

Our veins roll turbid
Bed and tables

Of shattered bones
Noon has fallen into our hands

And turned all gloomy

An open grave on the face of the earth
On your face on my face


 Trans. by Anne Pennington...Read more of this...

Today or this noon

by Emily Dickinson
 Today or this noon
She dwelt so close
I almost touched her --
Tonight she lies
Past neighborhood
And bough and steeple,
Now past surmise....Read more of this...

Noon

by Philip Levine
 I bend to the ground 
to catch 
something whispered, 
urgent, drifting 
across the ditches. 
The heaviness of 
flies stuttering 
in orbit, dirt 
ripening, the sweat 
of eggs. 
 There are 
small streams 
the width ofa thumb 
running in the villages 
of sheaves, whole 
eras of grain 
wakening on 
the stalks, a roof 
that breathes over 
my head. 
 Behind...Read more of this...

Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn

by Anne Sexton
 The summer sun ray
shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It sucks the air
and looks around for me.

The grass speaks.
I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend
and reach my way.

The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
In the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is...Read more of this...

High Noon

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Time’s finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! And yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark, 
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.

To those who burn the candle to the stick, 
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than early death.
We cannot count on raveled threads of age
Whereof...Read more of this...

Noon

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Shadder in de valley
Sunlight on de hill,
Sut'ny wish dat locus'
Knowed how to be still.
Don't de heat already
Mek a body hum,
'Dout dat insec' sayin'
Hottah days to come?
Fiel' 's a shinin' yaller
Wid de bendin' grain,
Guinea hen a callin',
Now's de time fu' rain;
Shet yo' mouf, you rascal,
Wha' 's de use to cry?
You do' see no rain clouds
Up dah in de sky.
Dis hyeah sweat's...Read more of this...

Noon -- is the Hinge of Day --

by Emily Dickinson
 Noon -- is the Hinge of Day --
Evening -- the Tissue Door --
Morning -- the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar --...Read more of this...

If I Should Learn In Some Quite Casual Way

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, 
 That you were gone, not to return again— 
Read from the back-page of a paper, say, 
 Held by a neighbor in a subway train, 
How at the corner of this avenue 
 And such a street (so are the papers filled) 
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—...Read more of this...

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