10 Best Famous Exquisitely Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Exquisitely poems. This is a select list of the best famous Exquisitely poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Exquisitely poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of exquisitely poems.

• All Famous Exquisitely Poems

 Once more the gate behind me falls; 
Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 
That stand within the chace. 

Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
Beneath its drift of smoke; 
And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began, 
Ere that, which in me burn'd, 
The love, that makes me thrice a man, 
Could hope itself return'd; 

To yonder oak within the field 
I spoke without restraint, 
And with a larger faith appeal'd 
Than Papist unto Saint. 

For oft I talk'd with him apart 
And told him of my choice, 
Until he plagiarized a heart, 
And answer'd with a voice. 

Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven 
None else could understand; 
I found him garrulously given, 
A babbler in the land. 

But since I heard him make reply 
Is many a weary hour; 
'Twere well to question him, and try 
If yet he keeps the power. 

Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, 
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, 
Whose topmost branches can discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place! 

Say thou, whereon I carved her name, 
If ever maid or spouse, 
As fair as my Olivia, came 
To rest beneath thy boughs.--- 

"O Walter, I have shelter'd here 
Whatever maiden grace 
The good old Summers, year by year 
Made ripe in Sumner-chace: 

"Old Summers, when the monk was fat, 
And, issuing shorn and sleek, 
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 
The girls upon the cheek, 

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 
And number'd bead, and shrift, 
Bluff Harry broke into the spence 
And turn'd the cowls adrift: 

"And I have seen some score of those 
Fresh faces that would thrive 
When his man-minded offset rose 
To chase the deer at five; 

"And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work 
In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
Went by me, like a stork: 

"The slight she-slips of royal blood, 
And others, passing praise, 
Straight-laced, but all-too-full in bud 
For puritanic stays: 

"And I have shadow'd many a group 
Of beauties, that were born 
In teacup-times of hood and hoop, 
Or while the patch was worn; 

"And, leg and arm with love-knots gay 
About me leap'd and laugh'd 
The modish Cupid of the day, 
And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. 

"I swear (and else may insects prick 
Each leaf into a gall) 
This girl, for whom your heart is sick, 
Is three times worth them all. 

"For those and theirs, by Nature's law, 
Have faded long ago; 
But in these latter springs I saw 
Your own Olivia blow, 

"From when she gamboll'd on the greens 
A baby-germ, to when 
The maiden blossoms of her teens 
Could number five from ten. 

"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, 
(And hear me with thine ears,) 
That, tho' I circle in the grain 
Five hundred rings of years--- 

"Yet, since I first could cast a shade, 
Did never creature pass 
So slightly, musically made, 
So light upon the grass: 

"For as to fairies, that will flit 
To make the greensward fresh, 
I hold them exquisitely knit, 
But far too spare of flesh." 

Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, 
And overlook the chace; 
And from thy topmost branch discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place. 

But thou, whereon I carved her name, 
That oft hast heard my vows, 
Declare when last Olivia came 
To sport beneath thy boughs. 

"O yesterday, you know, the fair 
Was holden at the town; 
Her father left his good arm-chair, 
And rode his hunter down. 

"And with him Albert came on his. 
I look'd at him with joy: 
As cowslip unto oxlip is, 
So seems she to the boy. 

"An hour had past---and, sitting straight 
Within the low-wheel'd chaise, 
Her mother trundled to the gate 
Behind the dappled grays. 

"But as for her, she stay'd at home, 
And on the roof she went, 
And down the way you use to come, 
She look'd with discontent. 

"She left the novel half-uncut 
Upon the rosewood shelf; 
She left the new piano shut: 
She could not please herseif 

"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, 
And livelier than a lark 
She sent her voice thro' all the holt 
Before her, and the park. 

"A light wind chased her on the wing, 
And in the chase grew wild, 
As close as might be would he cling 
About the darling child: 

"But light as any wind that blows 
So fleetly did she stir, 
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, 
And turn'd to look at her. 

"And here she came, and round me play'd, 
And sang to me the whole 
Of those three stanzas that you made 
About my Ôgiant bole;' 

"And in a fit of frolic mirth 
She strove to span my waist: 
Alas, I was so broad of girth, 
I could not be embraced. 

"I wish'd myself the fair young beech 
That here beside me stands, 
That round me, clasping each in each, 
She might have lock'd her hands. 

"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet 
As woodbine's fragile hold, 
Or when I feel about my feet 
The berried briony fold." 

O muffle round thy knees with fern, 
And shadow Sumner-chace! 
Long may thy topmost branch discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place! 

But tell me, did she read the name 
I carved with many vows 
When last with throbbing heart I came 
To rest beneath thy boughs? 

"O yes, she wander'd round and round 
These knotted knees of mine, 
And found, and kiss'd the name she found, 
And sweetly murmur'd thine. 

"A teardrop trembled from its source, 
And down my surface crept. 
My sense of touch is something coarse, 
But I believe she wept. 

"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light, 
She glanced across the plain; 
But not a creature was in sight: 
She kiss'd me once again. 

"Her kisses were so close and kind, 
That, trust me on my word, 
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, 
But yet my sap was stirr'd: 

"And even into my inmost ring 
A pleasure I discern'd, 
Like those blind motions of the Spring, 
That show the year is turn'd. 

"Thrice-happy he that may caress 
The ringlet's waving balm--- 
The cushions of whose touch may press 
The maiden's tender palm. 

"I, rooted here among the groves 
But languidly adjust 
My vapid vegetable loves 
With anthers and with dust: 

"For ah! my friend, the days were brief 
Whereof the poets talk, 
When that, which breathes within the leaf, 
Could slip its bark and walk. 

"But could I, as in times foregone, 
From spray, and branch, and stem, 
Have suck'd and gather'd into one 
The life that spreads in them, 

"She had not found me so remiss; 
But lightly issuing thro', 
I would have paid her kiss for kiss, 
With usury thereto." 

O flourish high, with leafy towers, 
And overlook the lea, 
Pursue thy loves among the bowers 
But leave thou mine to me. 

O flourish, hidden deep in fern, 
Old oak, I love thee well; 
A thousand thanks for what I learn 
And what remains to tell. 

" ÔTis little more: the day was warm; 
At last, tired out with play, 
She sank her head upon her arm 
And at my feet she lay. 

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves 
I breathed upon her eyes 
Thro' all the summer of my leaves 
A welcome mix'd with sighs. 

"I took the swarming sound of life--- 
The music from the town--- 
The murmurs of the drum and fife 
And lull'd them in my own. 

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, 
To light her shaded eye; 
A second flutter'd round her lip 
Like a golden butterfly; 

"A third would glimmer on her neck 
To make the necklace shine; 
Another slid, a sunny fleck, 
From head to ankle fine, 

"Then close and dark my arms I spread, 
And shadow'd all her rest--- 
Dropt dews upon her golden head, 
An acorn in her breast. 

"But in a pet she started up, 
And pluck'd it out, and drew 
My little oakling from the cup, 
And flung him in the dew. 

"And yet it was a graceful gift--- 
I felt a pang within 
As when I see the woodman lift 
His axe to slay my kin. 

"I shook him down because he was 
The finest on the tree. 
He lies beside thee on the grass. 
O kiss him once for me. 

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me, 
That have no lips to kiss, 
For never yet was oak on lea 
Shall grow so fair as this.' 

Step deeper yet in herb and fern, 
Look further thro' the chace, 
Spread upward till thy boughs discern 
The front of Sumner-place. 

This fruit of thine by Love is blest, 
That but a moment lay 
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest 
Some happy future day. 

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, 
The warmth it thence shall win 
To riper life may magnetise 
The baby-oak within. 

But thou, while kingdoms overset, 
Or lapse from hand to hand, 
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet 
Thine acorn in the land. 

May never saw dismember thee, 
Nor wielded axe disjoint, 
That art the fairest-spoken tree 
From here to Lizard-point. 

O rock upon thy towery-top 
All throats that gurgle sweet! 
All starry culmination drop 
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet! 

All grass of silky feather grow--- 
And while he sinks or swells 
The full south-breeze around thee blow 
The sound of minster bells. 

The fat earth feed thy branchy root, 
That under deeply strikes! 
The northern morning o'er thee shoot, 
High up, in silver spikes! 

Nor ever lightning char thy grain, 
But, rolling as in sleep, 
Low thunders bring the mellow rain, 
That makes thee broad and deep! 

And hear me swear a solemn oath, 
That only by thy side 
Will I to Olive plight my troth, 
And gain her for my bride. 

And when my marriage morn may fall, 
She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball 
In wreath about her hair. 

And I will work in prose and rhyme, 
And praise thee more in both 
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime, 
Or that Thessalian growth, 

In which the swarthy ringdove sat, 
And mystic sentence spoke; 
And more than England honours that, 
Thy famous brother-oak, 

Wherein the younger Charles abode 
Till all the paths were dim, 
And far below the Roundhead rode, 
And humm'd a surly hymn.

 O lonely heart so timid of approach, 
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips 
To the faint touch of tender finger tips: 
What is your word? What question would you broach? 

Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind 
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale, 
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail 
Against the daggers of my warring mind. 

There is no part of the unyielding earth, 
Even bare rocks where the eagles build their nest, 
Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest. 
No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth. 

But in the socket-chiseled teeth of strife, 
That gleam in serried files in all the lands, 
We may join hungry, understanding hands, 
And drink our share of ardent love and life.

 Alone in Sutton with Fynbos my orange cat

A long weekend of wind and rain drowning

The tumultuous flurry of mid-February blossom

A surfeit of letters to work through, a mountain

Of files to sort, some irritation at the thought

Of travelling to Kentish Town alone when

My mind was flooded with the mellifluous voice

Of Heath-Stubbs on tape reading ‘The Divided Ways’

In memory of Sidney Keyes.



“He has gone down into the dark cellar

To talk with the bright faced Spirit with silver hair

But I shall never know what word was spoken there.”



The best reader of the century, if not the best poet.

Resonant, mesmeric, his verse the anti-type of mine,

Classical, not personal, Apollonian not Dionysian

And most unconfessional but nonetheless a poet

Deserving honour in his eighty-fifth year.



Thirty people crowded into a room

With stacked chairs like a Sunday School

A table of pamphlets looked over but not bought

A lacquered screen holding court, a century’s junk.

An ivory dial telephone, a bowl of early daffodils

To focus on.



I was the first to read, speaking of James Simmons’ death,

My anguish at the year long silence from his last letter

To the Christmas card in Gaelic Nollaig Shona -

With the message “Jimmy’s doing better than expected.”

The difficulty I had in finding his publisher’s address -

Salmon Press, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare -

Then a soft sad Irish woman’s voice explained

“Jimmy’s had a massive stroke, phone Janice

At The Poet’s House.”





I looked at the letter I would never end or send.

“Your poems have a strength and honesty so rare.

The ability to render character as deftly as a painter.

Your being out-of-fashion shows just how bad things are

Your poetry so easy to enjoy and difficult to forget.

Like Yeats. ‘The Dawning of the Day’ so sad

And eloquent and memorable: I read it aloud

And felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle

An unflinching bitter rhetoric straight out

Hence the neglect. Your poem about Harrison.



“He has to feel the Odeons sell

Tickets to damned souls, that Dante’s Hell

Is in that red-plush darkness.”



Echoed in Roy Fisher's letter, “Once Harrison and I

Were best mates until fame went to his head.”

James, your ‘Love Leads Me into Danger’

Set off my own despair but restored me

Just as quickly with your sense of beauty’s muted dance.

“passing Dalway’s Bawn

where the chestnuts are, the first trees to go rusty,

old admirals drowned in their own gold braid.”



The scattered alliterations mimic so exquisitely

The random pattern of fallen conkers,

The sense of innocence not wholly clear

The guilt never entirely spent.



‘The Road to Clonbarra’, a poem for the homecoming

After a wedding, the breathlessness of new beginning.

Your own self questioning, “My fourth and last chance marriage,”

Your passionate confessions of failure and plea for absolution

“His thunder storms were in the late night bars.

Home was too hard too dry and far the stars.”



You were so urgent to hear my thoughts on your book

And once too often you were out of luck,

Heath-Stubbs nodded his old sad head.

“Simmons was my friend. I’d no idea he was dead.”

Before I could finish the poem John Rety interrupted

“Can you hurry? There’s others waiting for their turn!”

I muttered to my self, but kept my temper, just...



Eventually Heath-Stubbs began - poet, teacher, wit, raconteur and man

Of letters - littering his poems with references

To three kinds of Arabic genie

The class system of ancient Egypt

The pub architecture of the Edwardian era.

From the back row I strained to see his face.

The craggy jaw, the mane of long white hair.

The bowl of daffodils I’d focused on before.



He spoke but could not read and

Like me had no single poem by heart.

In his stead a man and woman read:

I could forgive the man’s inability to pronounce ‘Dionysian’

But when he read ‘hover’ as ‘haver’

My temper began to frazzle

The woman simpered and ruined every line

As if by design, I took some amitryptilene

And let my mind float free.

‘For Barry, instead of a Christmas card, this elegy

I wrote last week. Fond wishes. Jeremy..’



“So often, David, I still meet

Your benefactor from the time:

her speedwell-blue eyes, blue like yours,





with recollection, while we talk

through leaf-fall, with its mosaic

mottling the toad-spotted wet street.”



I looked at Heath-Stubbs’ face, his sightless eyes,

And in a second understood what Gascoyne meant

“Now the light of a prism has flashed like a bird down the dark-blue,

At the end of which mountains of shadow pile up beyond sight

Oh radiant prism

A wing has been torn and its feathers drift scattered by flight.”

 My restless blood now lies a-quiver,
Knowing that always, exquisitely,
This April twilight on the river
Stirs anguish in the heart of me.

For the fast world in that rare glimmer
Puts on the witchery of a dream,
The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,
The fiery windows, and the stream

With willows leaning quietly over,
The still ecstatic fading skies . . .
And all these, like a waiting lover,
Murmur and gleam, lift lustrous eyes,

Drift close to me, and sideways bending
Whisper delicious words.
But I
Stretch terrible hands, uncomprehending,
Shaken with love; and laugh; and cry.

My agony made the willows quiver;
I heard the knocking of my heart
Die loudly down the windless river,
I heard the pale skies fall apart,

And the shrill stars' unmeaning laughter,
And my voice with the vocal trees
Weeping. And Hatred followed after,
Shrilling madly down the breeze.

In peace from the wild heart of clamour,
A flower in moonlight, she was there,
Was rippling down white ways of glamour
Quietly laid on wave and air.

Her passing left no leaf a-quiver.
Pale flowers wreathed her white, white brows.
Her feet were silence on the river;
And 'Hush!' she said, between the boughs.

 On my desk, a set of labels
or a synopsis of leeks,
blanched by the sun
and trailing their roots

like a watering can.
Beyond and below,
diminished by distance,
a taxi shivers at the lights:

a shining moorhen
with an orange nodule
set over the beak,
taking a passenger

under its wing.
I turn away, confront
the cuckold hatstand
at bay in the corner,

and eavesdrop (bless you!)
on a hay-fever of brakes.
My Caran d'Ache are sharp
as the tips of an iris

and the four-tier file
is spotted with rust:
a study of plaice
by a Japanese master,

ochres exquisitely bled.
Instead of office work,
I fish for complements
and sport a pencil

behind each ear,
a bit of a devil,
or trap the telephone
awkwardly under my chin

like Richard Crookback,
crying, A horse! A horse!
My kingdom for a horse!
but only to myself,

ironically: the tube
is semi-stiff with stallion whangs,
the chairman's Mercedes
has windscreen wipers

like a bird's broken tongue,
and I am perfectly happy
to see your head, quick
round the door like a dryad,

as I pretend to be Ovid
in exile, composing Tristia
and sad for the shining,
the missed, the muscular beach.

 While I am emulating Keats
My brother fabrics toilet seats,
The which, they say, are works of art,
Aesthetic features of the mart;
So exquisitely are they made
With plastic of a pastel shade,
Of topaz, ivory or rose,
Inviting to serene repose.

Rajahs I'm told have seats of gold,--
(They must, I fear, be very cold).
But Tom's have thermostatic heat,
With sympathy your grace to greet.
Like silver they are neon lit,
Making a halo as you sit:
Then lo! they play with dulset tone
A melody by Mendelssohn.

Oh were I lyrical as Yeats
I would not sing of toilet seats,
But rather serenade a star,--
Yet I must take things as they are.
For even kings must coyly own
Them as essential as a throne:
So as I tug the Muse's teats
I envy Tom his toilet seats.

 When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon 
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, 
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune 
And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. 
But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; 
The ripple of the rivulets, the rustle of the trees 
Were only apple sauce to him, or just a piece of cheese. 

Now, Dan-di-dan the water rat was exquisitely dressed, 
For not a seal in Bass's Straits had half as fine a coat, 
And every day he combed and brushed his golden-yellow vest, 
A contrast with the white cravat he wore beneath his throat. 

And Dan-di-dan the water rat could move with ease and grace, 
So Ironbark appeared to him a creature out of place, 
With iron-plated overcoat and dirty little face. 

A crawfish at the point of death came drifting down the drains. 
Said he, "I'm scalded to the heart with bathing near the bore." 
The turtle and the water rat disputed his remains, 
For crawfish meat all day they'd eat, and then they'd ask for more. 

Said Dan-di-dan, "The prize is mine, for I was fishing here 
Before you tumbled down the bank and landed on your ear." 
"I wouldn't care," the turtle said, "if you'd have fished a year." 

So Baggy-beak the Pelican was asked to arbitrate; 
The scales of justice seemed to hang beneath his noble beak. 
He said, "I'll take possession of the subject of debate"; 
He stowed the fish inside his pouch and then began to speak. 

"The case is far from clear," he said, "and justices of note" -- 
But here he snapped his beak and flapped his piebald overcoat -- 
"Oh dear," he said, "that wretched fish has slithered down my throat." 

"But still," he said, "the point involved requires a full debate. 
I'll have to get the lawyer birds and fix a special day. 
Ad interim I rule that costs come out of the estate." 
And Baggy-beak the Pelican got up and flew away. 

So both the pair who went to law were feeling very small. 
Said they, "We might have halved the fish and saved a nasty brawl; 
For half a crawfish isn't much, but more than none at all."

 That slim creek out of the sky
the dried-blood western gum tree
is all stir in its high reaches:

its strung haze-blue foliage is dancing
points down in breezy mobs, swapping
pace and place in an all-over sway

retarded en masse by crimson blossom.
Bees still at work up there tack
around their exploded furry likeness

and the lawn underneath's a napped rug
of eyelash drift, of blooms flared
like a sneeze in a redhaired nostril,

minute urns, pinch-sized rockets
knocked down by winds, by night-creaking
fig-squirting bats, or the daily

parrot gang with green pocketknife wings.
Bristling food tough delicate
raucous life, each flower comes

as a spray in its own turned vase,
a taut starbust, honeyed model
of the tree's fragrance crisping in your head.

When the japanese plum tree 
was shedding in spring, we speculated
there among the drizzling petals

what kind of exquisitely precious
artistic bloom might be gendered
in a pure ethereal compost

of petals potted as they fell.
From unpetalled gun-debris
we know what is grown continually,

a tower of fabulous swish tatters,
a map hoisted upright, a crusted
riverbed with up-country show towns.

 Past the despairing wail--
And the bright banquets of the Elysian vale
Melt every care away!
Delight, that breathes and moves forever,
Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river!
Elysian life survey!
There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads,
His merry west-winds blithely leads
The ever-blooming May!
Through gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the hours,
In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers,
And truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day.
And joy to-day and joy to-morrow,
But wafts the airy soul aloft;
The very name is lost to sorrow,
And pain is rapture tuned more exquisitely soft.

Here the pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb,
And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim,
The load he shall bear never more;
Here the mower, his sickle at rest, by the streams,
Lulled with harp-strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreams,
The fields, when the harvest is o'er.
Here, he, whose ears drank in the battle roar,
Whose banners streamed upon the startled wind
A thunder-storm,--before whose thunder tread
The mountains trembled,--in soft sleep reclined,
By the sweet brook that o'er its pebbly bed
In silver plays, and murmurs to the shore,
Hears the stern clangor of wild spears no more!
Here the true spouse the lost-beloved regains,
And on the enamelled couch of summer-plains
Mingles sweet kisses with the zephyr's breath.
Here, crowned at last, love never knows decay,
Living through ages its one bridal day,
Safe from the stroke of death!

 The Spirit of the Unborn Babe peered through the window-pane,
Peered through the window-pane that glowed like beacon in the night;
For, oh, the sky was desolate and wild with wind and rain;
And how the little room was crammed with coziness and light!
Except the flirting of the fire there was no sound at all;
The Woman sat beside the hearth, her knitting on her knee;
The shadow of her husband's head was dancing on the wall;
She looked with staring eyes at it, she looked yet did not see.
She only saw a childish face that topped the table rim,
A little wistful ghost that smiled and vanished quick away;
And then because her tender eyes were flooding to the brim,
She lowered her head. . . . "Don't sorrow, dear," she heard him softly say;
"It's over now. We'll try to be as happy as before
(Ah! they who little children have, grant hostages to pain).
We gave Life chance to wound us once, but never, never more. . . ."
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe fled through the night again.

The Spirit of the Unborn Babe went wildered in the dark;
Like termagants the winds tore down and whirled it with the snow.
And then amid the writhing storm it saw a tiny spark,
A window broad, a spacious room all goldenly aglow,
A woman slim and Paris-gowned and exquisitely fair,
Who smiled with rapture as she watched her jewels catch the blaze;
A man in faultless evening dress, young, handsome, debonnaire,
Who smoked his cigarette and looked with frank admiring gaze.
"Oh, we are happy, sweet," said he; "youth, health, and wealth are ours.
What if a thousand toil and sweat that we may live at ease!
What if the hands are worn and torn that strew our path with flowers!
Ah, well! we did not make the world; let us not think of these.
Let's seek the beauty-spots of earth, Dear Heart, just you and I;
Let other women bring forth life with sorrow and with pain.
Above our door we'll hang the sign: `No children need apply. . . .'"
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe sped through the night again.

The Spirit of the Unborn Babe went whirling on and on;
It soared above a city vast, it swept down to a slum;
It saw within a grimy house a light that dimly shone;
It peered in through a window-pane and lo! a voice said: "Come!"
And so a little girl was born amid the dirt and din,
And lived in spite of everything, for life is ordered so;
A child whose eyes first opened wide to swinishness and sin,
A child whose love and innocence met only curse and blow.
And so in due and proper course she took the path of shame,
And gladly died in hospital, quite old at twenty years;
And when God comes to weigh it all, ah! whose shall be the blame
For all her maimed and poisoned life, her torture and her tears?
For oh, it is not what we do, but what we have not done!
And on that day of reckoning, when all is plain and clear,
What if we stand before the Throne, blood-guilty every one? . . .
Maybe the blackest sins of all are Selfishness and Fear.