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Famous Blackbirds Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...y burnie strays,
Where bonie lasses bleach their claes,
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
 Wi’ hawthorns gray,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays,
 At close o’ day.


Thy rural loves are Nature’s sel’;
Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell
 O’ witchin love,
That charm that can the strongest quell,
 The sternest move....Read more of this...



by Thomas, Edward
...ed
Her, locked her out of doors at bedtime
And had her kittens duly drowned.

In Spring, nevertheless, this cat
Ate blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales,
And birds of bright voice and plume and flight,
As well as scraps from neighbours’ pails.

I loathed and hated her for this;
One speckle on a thrush’s breast
Was worth a million such; and yet
She lived long, till God gave her rest....Read more of this...

by Bronte, Anne
...again
Beneath our Gondal's sky.'

'Zenobia, do you remember
A little lonely spring
Among Exina's woody hills
Where blackbirds used to sing,

'And when they ceased as daylight faded
From the dusky sky
The pensive nightingale began
Her matchless melody?

'Sweet bluebells used to flourish there
And tall trees waved on high,
And through their ever sounding leaves
The soft wind used to sigh.

'At morning we have often played
Beside that lonely well;
At evening we have lin...Read more of this...

by Belieu, Erin
...e
that was then your body, well-loved?

This must have been you, looking out at that world
of flat, buttered fields and blackbirds ascending... '

 But what was sky then?

Today, I receive a postcard of
a blue guitar. Here, snow falls with wings,
tumbling in its feathered body, melting
on the window glass. How each evening becomes
another beautiful woman holding
the color of expensive sapphires
against her throat, I'll never know.
It is an ordinary cla...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...saw her!"
On the morrow, as the day dawned,
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,
Gathered all his black marauders,
Crows and blackbirds, jays and ravens,
Clamorous on the dusky tree-tops,
And descended, fast and fearless,
On the fields of Hiawatha,
On the grave of the Mondamin.
"We will drag Mondamin," said they,
"From the grave where he is buried,
Spite of all the magic circles
Laughing Water draws around it,
Spite of all the sacred footprints
Minnehaha stamps upon it!"
But t...Read more of this...



by Wei, Wang
...sees naught but the sky.

Shut out are the green fields and birds in the bushes;
In the prison yard nothing builds, blackbirds or thrushes.
Farewell to the old mill and dash of waters,
To the miller and, dearer still, to his three bonny daughters.

In the nook, the larger burdock grows near the green willow;
In the flood, round the moor-cock dashes under the billow;
To the old mill farewell, to the lock, pens, and waters,
To the miller himsel', and his three bonny...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...s

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well,...Read more of this...

by Raine, Craig
...A pair of blackbirds
warring in the roses,
one or two poppies

losing their heads,
the trampled lawn
a battlefield of dolls.

Branch by pruned branch,
a child has climbed
the family tree

to queen it over us:
we groundlings search
the flowering cherry

till we find her face,
its pale prerogative
to rule our hearts.

Sir Walter Raleigh
trails his comforter
abou...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...losed as the town awoke.

 A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
 Blackbirds and the sun of October
 Summery
 On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
 To the rain wringing
 Wind blow cold
 In the wood faraway under me.

 Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
 With its horns through mist an...Read more of this...

by Aldington, Richard
...udding chestnuts 
Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open 
The starlings make their clitter-clatter; 
And the blackbirds in the grass 
Are getting as fat as the pigeons. 

Too-hoo, this is brave; 
Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress....Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,— 
With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow, 
Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket? 

Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley; 
Your ruffian haste shook the young, blossoming orchards;
You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney, 
And white your pennons streamed along the river. 

You have robbed the bee, South Wind, in your adventure, 
Blustering with gentle flowers; but I forgave...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...ars like 
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere is
nowhere---
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:

why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school---
you tell
m...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...aw young Anna favor
Come walking into church,--

Or bringing from the meadows,
At set of harvest-day,
The frolic of the blackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.

Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two years' bride,
She scowls in the face of her husband,
And spurns her child aside.

"Rake out the red coals, goodman,--
For there the child shall lie,
Till the black witch comes to fetch her
And both up chimney fly.

"It's never my own little daughter,
It's neve...Read more of this...

by Davies, William Henry
...sea 
Ran over the earth's lip in heavy floods; 
And then again of how the strange Chinese 
Conversed much as our homely Blackbirds sing. 
He told us how he sailed in one old ship 
Near that volcano Martinique, whose power 
Shook like dry leaves the whole Caribbean seas; 
And made the sun set in a sea of fire 
Which only half was his; and dust was thick 
On deck, and stones were pelted at the mast. 
Into my greedy ears such words that sleep 
Stood at my pillow half the...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...he young grass when I started 
And now the hay is carted, 
And now my song is ended, 
And all the summer splended; 
The blackbirds' second brood 
Routs beech leaves in the wood; 
The pink and rose have speeded, 
Forget-me-not has seeded. 
Only the winds that blew, 
The rain that makes things new, 
The earth that hides things old, 
And blessings manifold.

O lovely lily clean, 
O lily springing green, 
O lily bursting white, 
Dear lily of delight, 
Spring my heart agen...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...their husbands,
Changed to birds of various plumage.
Some were jays and some were magpies,
Others thrushes, others blackbirds;
And they hopped, and sang, and twittered,
Perked and fluttered all their feathers,
Strutted in their shining plumage,
And their tails like fans unfolded.
"Only Oweenee, the youngest,
Was not changed, but sat in silence,
Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly,
Looking sadly at the others;
Till Osseo, gazing upward,
Gave another cry of anguish,
Such a...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...le to try.
They get all still and lie in safety sure,
And out again when everything's secure,
And start and snap at blackbirds bouncing by
To fight and catch the great white butterfly....Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...oving thing 
Was the eye of the blackbird. 

II 
I was of three minds, 
Like a tree 
In which there are three blackbirds. 

III 
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 
It was a small part of the pantomime. 

IV 
A man and a woman 
Are one. 
A man and a woman and a blackbird 
Are one. 

V 
I do not know which to prefer, 
The beauty of inflections 
Or the beauty of innuendoes, 
The blackbird whistling 
Or just after. 

V...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...nd sober. Two days passed, 
I counted eighty tankers pulling 
through the flat lake waters on their way, 
I counted blackbirds gathering at dusk 
in the low trees, clustered like bees. 
I counted the hours from noon to noon 
and got nowhere. At last the Captain slept. 
I banked the fire, raised anchor, cast off, 
and jumping ship left her drifting out 
on the black bay. I walked seven miles 
to the Interstate and caught a meat truck 
heading west, and came...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...aited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them 
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrows off
but the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
smaller and quicker,
got their
due.
the men stood on their porches
smoking cigarettes,
now knowing
they'd have to go out
there
to look for that job
that probably wasn't 
there, to start that car 
that probably wouldn't
start.
and the on...Read more of this...

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