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Best Famous Silvery Poems

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

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Written by Roger McGough | Create an image from this poem

Mrs Moon

 Mrs Moon
sitting up in the sky
little old lady
rock-a-bye
with a ball of fading light
and silvery needles
knitting the night


Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Create an image from this poem

THE DANCE OF DEATH

 THE warder looks down at the mid hour of night,

On the tombs that lie scatter'd below:
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,

And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another opes wide, And women and men stepping forth are descried, In cerements snow-white and trailing.
In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch, And whirl round in dances so gay; The young and the old, and the poor, and the rich, But the cerements stand in their way; And as modesty cannot avail them aught here, They shake themselves all, and the shrouds soon appear Scatter'd over the tombs in confusion.
Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh, As the troop with strange gestures advance, And a rattle and clatter anon rises high, As of one beating time to the dance.
The sight to the warder seems wondrously *****, When the villainous Tempter speaks thus in his ear: "Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!" Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled Behind the church-door with all speed; The moon still continues her clear light to shed On the dance that they fearfully lead.
But the dancers at length disappear one by one, And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don, And under the turf all is quiet.
But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still, And gropes at the graves in despair; Yet 'tis by no comrade he's treated so ill The shroud he soon scents in the air.
So he rattles the door--for the warder 'tis well That 'tis bless'd, and so able the foe to repel, All cover'd with crosses in metal.
The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow, There remains for reflection no time; On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now, And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed! Like a long-legged spider, with ne'er-changing speed, Advances the dreaded pursuer.
The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pale, The shroud to restore fain had sought; When the end,--now can nothing to save him avail,-- In a tooth formed of iron is caught.
With vanishing lustre the moon's race is run, When the bell thunders loudly a powerful One, And the skeleton fails, crush'd to atoms.
1813.
Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

The Mermaid

 I

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

II

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
 Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
 Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
 Springing alone
 With a shrill inner sound
 Over the throne
 In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea Would feel their immortality Die in their hearts for the love of me.
III But at night I would wander away, away, I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks, And lightly vault from the throne and play With the mermen in and out of the rocks; We would run to and fro, and hide and seek, On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells, Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek, And adown the steep like a wave I would leap From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells; For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me, In the purple twilights under the sea; But the king of them all would carry me, Woo me, and win me, and marry me, In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be In the hueless mosses under the sea Would curl round my silver feet silently, All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft All things that are forked, and horned, and soft Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea, All looking down for the love of me.
Written by Obi Nwakanma | Create an image from this poem

The Four Seasons

I
ICICLES fall from trees, molten with age, 
without memory - they stand aloof in their 
nakedness - they limber; 
like the gods terrified into silence, 
like tall brooding deities looming out of the 
fog: 

The forest hugs them 
carves them into stones, 
Etches them into the slow 
eastern landscape: rivers, hills 
the slow running water, 
times broken inscapes…

The willows are burdened with ice 
the white shrouds of burial spread 
upon the earth's ravaged face; the eyes 
unseeing, the mouth unspeaking, 
a gust of wind proclaims the anger of 
immemorial ages; the cycle, the 
eternal ritual of mystical returns - 

The cypress - whitening -
boneless; wearing her best habit, 
a pale green in the forest of ghosts -

And so I walk through this windless night 
through the narrow imponderable road 
through the silence - the silence of trees -

I hear not even the gust of wind
I hear only the quiet earth, thawing underneath; 
I hear the slow silent death of winter -

where the sun is yellowest.
But above, Monadnock looms like some angry Moloch, her white nipple seizing the space drained of all milk.
.
.
A she-devil beckoning to worshippers seductive - her arm stretching outwards - to this lonely pilgrim lost in the mist: Behold the school of wild bucks Behold the meeting of incarnate spirits - Behold the lost souls bearing tapers in rags of rich damask, Down Thomas - the saint of unbelievers - down the road to bliss Down to the red house, uncertain like a beggar's bowl hanging unto the cliff of withdrawn pledges, where the well is deepest.
.
.
I have dared to live beneath the great untamed.
To every good, to every flicker of stars along the pine shadows; To every tussle with lucid dusk, To every moonlit pledge, to every turn made to outleap silvery pollen, I have desired to listen - to listen - to the ripening of seasons.
.
.
.
Winter 2001 This is ONE of a continuing sequence.
Written by Emily Brontë | Create an image from this poem

A Day Dream

 On a sunny brae, alone I lay
One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May
With her young lover, June.
From her mother's heart, seemed loath to part That queen of bridal charms, But her father smiled on the fairest child He ever held in his arms.
The trees did wave their plumy crests, The glad birds caroled clear; And I, of all the wedding guests, Was only sullen there! There was not one, but wished to shun My aspect void of cheer; The very grey rocks, looking on, Asked, "What do you here?" And I could utter no reply; In sooth, I did not know Why I had brought a clouded eye To greet the general glow.
So, resting on a heathy bank, I took my heart to me; And we together sadly sank Into a reverie.
We thought, "When winter comes again, Where will these bright things be? All vanished, like a vision vain, An unreal mockery! The birds that now so blithely sing, Through deserts, frozen dry, Poor spectres of the perished spring, In famished troops, will fly.
And why should we be glad at all? The leaf is hardly green, Before a token of its fall Is on the surface seen!" Now, whether it were really so, I never could be sure; But as in fit of peevish woe, I stretched me on the moor.
A thousand thousand gleaming fires Seemed kindling in the air; A thousand thousand silvery lyres Resounded far and near: Methought, the very breath I breathed Was full of sparks divine, And all my heather-couch was wreathed By that celestial shine! And, while the wide earth echoing rung To their strange minstrelsy, The little glittering spirits sung, Or seemed to sing, to me.
"O mortal! mortal! let them die; Let time and tears destroy, That we may overflow the sky With universal joy! Let grief distract the sufferer's breast, And night obscure his way; They hasten him to endless rest, And everlasting day.
To thee the world is like a tomb, A desert's naked shore; To us, in unimagined bloom, It brightens more and more! And could we lift the veil, and give One brief glimpse to thine eye, Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live, Because they live to die.
" The music ceased; the noonday dream, Like dream of night, withdrew; But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem Her fond creation true.


Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

A Carol of Harvest for 1867

 1
A SONG of the good green grass! 
A song no more of the city streets; 
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.
A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.
2 For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself, Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields, Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee, Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart, Tuning a verse for thee.
O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice! O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths! O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb! A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.
3 Ever upon this stage, Is acted God’s calm, annual drama, Gorgeous processions, songs of birds, Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul, The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves, The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees, The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass, The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages, The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra, The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging, silvery fringes, The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars, The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows, The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.
4 Fecund America! To-day, Thou art all over set in births and joys! Thou groan’st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing garment! Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions! A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast demesne! As some huge ship, freighted to water’s edge, thou ridest into port! As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values fallen upon thee, and risen out of thee! Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle! Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty! Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns! Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest East, and lookest West! Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles—that giv’st a million farms, and missest nothing! Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art hospitable, as God is hospitable.
) 5 When late I sang, sad was my voice; Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and smoke of conflict; In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood, Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying.
But now I sing not War, Nor the measur’d march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps, Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle.
No more the dead and wounded; No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.
Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping armies? Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread that follow’d.
6 (Pass—pass, ye proud brigades! So handsome, dress’d in blue—with your tramping, sinewy legs; With your shoulders young and strong—with your knapsacks and your muskets; —How elate I stood and watch’d you, where, starting off, you march’d! Pass;—then rattle, drums, again! Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill, your salutes! For an army heaves in sight—O another gathering army! Swarming, trailing on the rear—O you dread, accruing army! O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea! with your fever! O my land’s maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch! Lo! your pallid army follow’d!) 7 But on these days of brightness, On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns, Shall the dead intrude? Ah, the dead to me mar not—they fit well in Nature; They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and grass, And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon’s far margin.
Nor do I forget you, departed; Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones; But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at peace—like pleasing phantoms, Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.
8 I saw the day, the return of the Heroes; (Yet the Heroes never surpass’d, shall never return; Them, that day, I saw not.
) I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions of armies, I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions, Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.
No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans; Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop, Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march, Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.
9 A pause—the armies wait; A million flush’d, embattled conquerors wait; The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and sure as dawn, They melt—they disappear.
Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands! Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields; But here and hence your victory.
Melt, melt away, ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad soldiers! Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly arms; Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or East or West, With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars.
10 Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul! The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding; The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
All till’d and untill’d fields expand before me; I see the true arenas of my race—or first, or last, Man’s innocent and strong arenas.
I see the Heroes at other toils; I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons.
11 I see where America, Mother of All, Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long, And counts the varied gathering of the products.
Busy the far, the sunlit panorama; Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North, Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane; Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy, Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine, And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund brook, And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes, And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring grass.
12 Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products! Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All, With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch’d you.
Toil on, Heroes! toil well! Handle the weapons well! The Mother of All—yet here, as ever, she watches you.
Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest, Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters, The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements: Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the revolving hay-rakes, The steam-power reaping-machines, and the horse-power machines, The engines, thrashers of grain, and cleaners of grain, well separating the straw—the nimble work of the patent pitch-fork; Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the rice-cleanser.
Beneath thy look, O Maternal, With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes harvest.
All gather, and all harvest; (Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might swing, as now, in security; Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in peace.
) 13 Under Thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of hay, under thy great face, only; Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every barbed spear, under thee; Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—each ear in its light-green sheath, Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns, Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs; Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and hoard the golden, the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas, Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania, Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the Borders, Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches of grapes from the vines, Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South, Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.
Written by Mary Darby Robinson | Create an image from this poem

Ode to the Moon

 PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend; 
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream.
And oft, amidst the shades of night I court thy undulating light; When Fairies dance around the verdant ring, Or frisk beside the bubbling spring, When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song Echoes thro' the silent air, As he pens his fleecy care, Or plods with saunt'ring gait, the dewy meads along.
CHASTE ORB! as thro' the vaulted sky Feath'ry clouds transparent sail; When thy languid, weeping eye, Sheds its soft tears upon the painted vale; As I ponder o'er the floods, Or tread with listless step, th'embow'ring woods, O, let thy transitory beam, Soothe my sad mind, with FANCY'S aëry dream.
Wrapt in REFLECTION, let me trace O'er the vast ethereal space, Stars, whose twinkling fires illume Dark-brow'd NIGHT'S obtrusive gloom; Where across the concave wide; Flaming METEORS swiftly glide; Or along the milky way, Vapours shoot a silvery ray; And as I mark, thy faint reclining head, Sinking on Ocean's pearly bed; Let REASON tell my soul, thus all things fade.
The Seasons change, the "garish SUN" When Day's burning car hath run Its fiery course, no more we view, While o'er the mountain's golden head, Streak'd with tints of crimson hue, Twilight's filmy curtains spread, Stealing o'er Nature's face, a desolating shade.
Yon musky FLOW'R, that scents the earth; The SOD, that gave its odours birth; The ROCK, that breaks the torrent's force; The VALE, that owns its wand'ring course; The woodlands where the vocal throng Trill the wild melodious song; Thirsty desarts, sands that glow, Mountains, cap'd with flaky snow; Luxuriant groves, enamell'd fields, All, all, prolific Nature yields, Alike shall end; the sensate HEART, With all its passions, all its fire, Touch'd by FATE'S unerring dart, Shall feel its vital strength expire; Those eyes, that beam with FRIENDSHIP'S ray, And glance ineffable delight, Shall shrink from LIFE'S translucid day, And close their fainting orbs, in DEATH'S impervious night.
Then what remains for mortal pow'r; But TIME'S dull journey to beguile; To deck with joy, the winged hour, To meet its sorrows with a patient smile; And when the toilsome pilgrimage shall end, To greet the tyrant, as a welcome friend.
Written by Christina Rossetti | Create an image from this poem

In The Willow Shade

 I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.
Who set their heart upon a hope That never comes to pass, Droop in the end like fading heliotrope The sun's wan looking-glass.
Who set their will upon a whim Clung to through good and ill, Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim, Or hit or miss their will.
All things are vain that wax and wane, For which we waste our breath; Love only doth not wane and is not vain, Love only outlives death.
A singing lark rose toward the sky, Circling he sang amain; He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high, And then he sank again.
A second like a sunlit spark Flashed singing up his track; But never overtook that foremost lark, And songless fluttered back.
A hovering melody of birds Haunted the air above; They clearly sang contentment without words, And youth and joy and love.
O silvery weeping willow tree With all leaves shivering, Have you no purpose but to shadow me Beside this rippled spring? On this first fleeting day of Spring, For Winter is gone by, And every bird on every quivering wing Floats in a sunny sky; On this first Summer-like soft day, While sunshine steeps the air, And every cloud has gat itself away, And birds sing everywhere.
Have you no purpose in the world But thus to shadow me With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled, O weeping willow tree? With all your tremulous leaves outspread Betwixt me and the sun, While here I loiter on a mossy bed With half my work undone; My work undone, that should be done At once with all my might; For after the long day and lingering sun Comes the unworking night.
This day is lapsing on its way, Is lapsing out of sight; And after all the chances of the day Comes the resourceless night.
The weeping willow shook its head And stretched its shadow long; The west grew crimson, the sun smoldered red, The birds forbore a song.
Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves, The ripple made a moan, The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves; And then I felt alone.
I rose to go, and felt the chill, And shivered as I went; Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still, What more that willow meant; That silvery weeping willow tree With all leaves shivering, Which spent one long day overshadowing me Beside a spring in Spring.
Written by Wole Soyinka | Create an image from this poem

IN THE SMALL HOURS

Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors.
Ghost fingers Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins Of marooned mariners, captives Of Circe's sultry notes.
The barman Dispenses igneous potions ? Somnabulist, the band plays on.
Cocktail mixer, silvery fish Dances for limpet clients.
Applause is steeped in lassitude, Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers And artful eyelash of the androgynous.
The hovering notes caress the night Mellowed deep indigo ?still they play.
Departures linger.
Absences do not Deplete the tavern.
They hang over the haze As exhalations from receded shores.
Soon, Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn The notes hold sway, smoky Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.
This music's plaint forgives, redeems The deafness of the world.
Night turns Homewards, sheathed in notes of solace, pleats The broken silence of the heart.
Written by Rita Dove | Create an image from this poem

The Bistro Styx

 She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.
What's this, I thought, lifting a hand until she nodded and started across the parquet; that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray, from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"Sorry I'm late," she panted, though she wasn't, sliding into the chair, her cape tossed off in a shudder of brushed steel.
We kissed.
Then I leaned back to peruse my blighted child, this wary aristocratic mole.
"How's business?" I asked, and hazarded a motherly smile to keep from crying out: Are you content to conduct your life as a cliché and, what's worse, an anachronism, the brooding artist's demimonde? Near the rue Princesse they had opened a gallery cum souvenir shop which featured fuzzy off-color Monets next to his acrylics, no doubt, plus beared African drums and the occasional miniature gargoyle from Notre Dame the Great Artist had carved at breakfast with a pocket knife.
"Tourists love us.
The Parisians, of course"-- she blushed--"are amused, though not without a certain admiration .
.
.
" The Chateaubriand arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute in its fragrant crust, a black plug steaming like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy; one touch with her fork sent pink juices streaming.
"Admiration for what?"Wine, a bloody Pinot Noir, brought color to her cheeks.
"Why, the aplomb with which we've managed to support our Art"--meaning he'd convinced her to pose nude for his appalling canvases, faintly futuristic landscapes strewn with carwrecks and bodies being chewed by rabid cocker spaniels.
"I'd like to come by the studio," I ventured, "and see the new stuff.
" "Yes, if you wish .
.
.
"A delicate rebuff before the warning: "He dresses all in black now.
Me, he drapes in blues and carmine-- and even though I think it's kinda cute, in company I tend toward more muted shades.
" She paused and had the grace to drop her eyes.
She did look ravishing, spookily insubstantial, a lipstick ghost on tissue, or as if one stood on a fifth-floor terrace peering through a fringe of rain at Paris' dreaming chimney pots, each sooty issue wobbling skyward in an ecstatic oracular spiral.
"And he never thinks of food.
I wish I didn't have to plead with him to eat.
.
.
.
"Fruit and cheese appeared, arrayed on leaf-green dishes.
I stuck with café crème.
"This Camembert's so ripe," she joked, "it's practically grown hair," mucking a golden glob complete with parsley sprig onto a heel of bread.
Nothing seemed to fill her up: She swallowed, sliced into a pear, speared each tear-shaped lavaliere and popped the dripping mess into her pretty mouth.
Nowhere the bright tufted fields, weighted vines and sun poured down out of the south.
"But are you happy?"Fearing, I whispered it quickly.
"What?You know, Mother"-- she bit into the starry rose of a fig-- "one really should try the fruit here.
" I've lost her, I thought, and called for the bill.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things