Famous Bird Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Bird poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bird poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bird poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Eugene Field
Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter,
And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over;
Down in the pasture the sheep hear that strange crying for Peter,
Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated.
So let me tell you the tale, when, where, and how it all happened,
And, when the story is...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
he says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
At Half past Three, a single Bird
Unto a silent Sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.
At Half past Four, Experiment
Had subjugated test
And lo, Her silver Principle
Supplanted all the rest.
At Half past Seven, Element
Nor Implement, be seen --
And Place was where the Presence was
Circumference between....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
No ladder needs the bird but skies
To situate its wings,
Nor any leader's grim baton
Arraigns it as it sings.
The implements of bliss are few --
As Jesus says of Him,
"Come unto me" the moiety
That wafts the cherubim....Read more of this...
by
W S Merwin
Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before
one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else
and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before
where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening
it...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
The bird with the dark plumes in my blood,
That never for one moment however I patched my truces
Consented to make peace with the people,
It is pitiful now to watch her pleasure In a breath of
tempest
Breaking the sad promise of spring.
Are these that morose hawk's wings, vaulting, a mere
mad swallow's,
The snow-shed peak, the violent precipice?
Poor outlaw...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
My friend must be a Bird --
Because it flies!
Mortal, my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a Bee!
Ah, curious friend!
Thou puzzlest me!...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Mansfield
In the wide bed
Under the freen embroidered quilt
With flowers and leaves always in soft motion
She is like a wounded bird resting on a pool.
The hunter threw his dart
And hit her breast,--
Hit her but did not kill.
"O my wings, lift me--lift me!
I am not dreadfully hurt!"
Down she dropped and was still.
Kind people come to the edge of the pool with...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A prompt -- executive Bird is the Jay --
Bold as a Bailiff's Hymn --
Brittle and Brief in quality --
Warrant in every line --
Sitting a Bough like a Brigadier
Confident and straight --
Much is the mien of him in March
As a Magistrate --...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Bird must sing to earn the Crumb
What merit have the Tune
No Breakfast if it guaranty
The Rose content may bloom
To gain renown of Lady's Drawer
But if the Lady come
But once a Century, the Rose
Superfluous become --...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Once I saw a little bird
Come hop, hop, hop;
So I cried, "Little bird,
Will you stop, stop, stop?"
And was going to the window
To say, "How do you do?"
But he shook his little tail,
And far away he flew....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
I flew here, as a bird from the wild, in aim
Up to a higher nest my course to frame,
But, finding here no guide who knows the way,
Fly out by the same door where through I came....Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her Love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above
The freezing stream below.
There was no leaf upon the forest bare. 5
No flower upon the ground
And little motion in the air
Except the mill-wheel's sound. ...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Bird did prance -- the Bee did play --
The Sun ran miles away
So blind with joy he could not choose
Between his Holiday
The morn was up -- the meadows out
The Fences all but ran,
Republic of Delight, I thought
Where each is Citizen --
From Heavy laden Lands to thee
Were seas to cross to come
A Caspian were crowded --
Too near thou...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
THOU who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)
Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,
As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,
(Myself a speck, a point on the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Between the cliff-rise and the beach
A slip of emerald I own;
With fig and olive, almond, peach,
cherry and plum-tree overgrown;
Glad-watered by a crystal spring
That carols through the silver night,
And populous with birds who sing
Gay madrigals for my delight.
Some merchants fain would buy my land
To build a stately pleasure dome.
Poor fools! they cannot understand
how pricelessly it is my home!
So luminous with...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
By neer resemblance see that Bird betray'd
Who takes the well wrought Arras for a shade
There hopes to pearch and with a chearfull Tune
O're-passe the scortchings of the sultry Noon.
But soon repuls'd by the obdurate scean
How swift she turns but turns alas in vain
That piece a Grove, this shews an ambient sky
Where immitated Fowl their pinnions ply
Seeming to mount in...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Of Being is a Bird
The likest to the Down
An Easy Breeze do put afloat
The General Heavens -- upon --
It soars -- and shifts -- and whirls --
And measures with the Clouds
In easy -- even -- dazzling pace --
No different the Birds --
Except a Wake of Music
Accompany their feet --
As did the Down emit a Tune --
For Ecstasy -- of...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Said a people to a poet---" Go out from among us straightway!
While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.
There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways
Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!"
The poet went out weeping---the nightingale ceased chanting;
"Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?"
I cannot sing...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
In an ocean, 'way out yonder,
(As all sapient people know)
Is the land of Wonder-Wander,
Whither children love to go;
It's their playing, romping, swinging,
That give great joy to me
While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing
In the amfalula tree!
There the gum-drops grow like cherries,
And taffy's thick as peas--
Caramels you pick like berries
When, and where, and how you please;
Big red sugar-plums are clinging
To the cliffs...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
River blue bird exceed white Hill green flower about to ignite This spring see again have What day be return year The river's blue, the bird a perfect white, The mountain green with flowers about to blaze. I've watched the spring pass away again, When will I be able to return?...Read more of this...
by
Aleksandr Blok
On waters, spread without end,
Dressed with the sunset so purple,
It sings and prophesies for land,
Unable to lift the smashed wings' couple...
The charge of Tartars' hordes it claims,
And bloody set of executions,
Earthquake, and hunger and the flames,
The death of justice, crime’s intrusion...
And caught with fear, cold and smooth,
The fair face flames...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.
In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.
No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
As told to a child
As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just...Read more of this...
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