Famous Blithely Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Thirty-nine

by Eugene Field
 O hapless day! O wretched day!
I hoped you'd pass me by--
Alas, the years have sneaked away
And all is changed but I!
Had I the power, I would remand
You to a gloom condign,
But here you've crept upon me and
I--I am thirty-nine!

Now, were I thirty-five, I could
Assume a flippant guise;
Or, were I forty years, I should
Undoubtedly look wise;
For forty years are said...Read more of this...

The Nithsdale Widow and Her Son

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1746, on a fine summer afternoon,
When trees and flowers were in full bloom,
That widow Riddel sat knitting stockings on a little rustic seat,
Which her only son had made for her, which was very neat. 

The cottage she lived in was in the wilds of Nithsdale,
Where many a poor soul had cause to bewail
The loss...Read more of this...

The Rose Family - Song 1

by Louisa May Alcott
 O flower at my window 
Why blossom you so fair, 
With your green and purple cup 
Upturned to sun and air? 
'I bloom, blithesome Bessie, 
To cheer your childish heart; 
The world is full of labor, 
And this shall be my part.' 
Whirl, busy wheel, faster, 
Spin, little thread, spin; 
The sun shines fair without, 
And we are gay...Read more of this...

Externalism

by Robert William Service
 The Greatest Writer of to-day
(With Maupassant I almost set him)
Said to me in a weary way,
The last occasion that I met him:
"Old chap, this world is more and more
Becoming bourgeois, blasé, blousy:
Thank God I've lived so long before
It got so definitely lousy."

Said I: "Old chap, I don't agree.
Why should one so dispraise the present?
For gainful guys like you and...Read more of this...

Was It You?

by Robert William Service
 "Hullo, young Jones! with your tie so gay
And your pen behind your ear;
Will you mark my cheque in the usual way?
For I'm overdrawn, I fear."
Then you look at me in a manner bland,
As you turn your ledger's leaves,
And you hand it back with a soft white hand,
And the air of a man who grieves. . . .

"Was it you,...Read more of this...

The Two Men

by Thomas Hardy
 THERE were two youths of equal age,
Wit, station, strength, and parentage;
They studied at the self-same schools,
And shaped their thoughts by common rules.

One pondered on the life of man,
His hopes, his endings, and began
To rate the Market's sordid war
As something scarce worth living for.

"I'll brace to higher aims," said he,
"I'll further Truth and Purity;
Thereby to mend and mortal lot
And sweeten...Read more of this...

To Canaris, The Greek Patriot

by Victor Hugo
 ("Canaris! nous t'avons oublié.") 
 
 {VIII., October, 1832.} 


 O Canaris! O Canaris! the poet's song 
 Has blameful left untold thy deeds too long! 
 But when the tragic actor's part is done, 
 When clamor ceases, and the fights are won, 
 When heroes realize what Fate decreed, 
 When chieftains mark no more which thousands...Read more of this...

A Certain Lady

by Dorothy Parker
 Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head, 
And drink your rushing words with eager lips, 
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red, 
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips. 
When you rehearse your list of loves to me, 
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed. 
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see...Read more of this...

Elysium

by Friedrich von Schiller
 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...Read more of this...

Madmen

by Billy Collins
 They say you can jinx a poem
if you talk about it before it is done.
If you let it out too early, they warn,
your poem will fly away,
and this time they are absolutely right.

Take the night I mentioned to you
I wanted to write about the madmen,
as the newspapers so blithely call them,
who attack art, not in reviews,
but with breadknives and...Read more of this...

Idyll

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 A village Chorus is supposed to be assembled, and about to
commence its festive procession.

[Written for the birthday of the Duchess Louisa of Weimar.]

CHORUS.

THE festal day hail ye

With garlands of pleasure,

And dances' soft measure,
With rapture commingled
And sweet choral song.

DAMON.

Oh, how I yearn from out the crowd to flee!
What joy a secret glade would give to me!
Amid the throng, the turmoil...Read more of this...

The Kings Experiment

by Thomas Hardy
 It was a wet wan hour in spring, 
And Nature met King Doom beside a lane, 
Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading 
 The Mother's smiling reign. 

 "Why warbles he that skies are fair 
And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay, 
When I have placed no sunshine in the air 
 Or glow on earth to-day?" 

...Read more of this...

The Call of the Winds

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Ho, come out with the wind of spring,
And step it blithely in woodlands waking; 
Friend am I of each growing thing
From the gray sod into sunshine breaking; 
Mine is the magic of twilights dim, 
Of violets blue on the still pool's rim, 
Mine is the breath of the blossoms young 
Sweetest of fragrances storied or sung­
Come, ye earth-children, weary...Read more of this...

Santa Claus in the Bush

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It chanced out back at the Christmas time, 
When the wheat was ripe and tall, 
A stranger rode to the farmer's gate -- 
A sturdy man and a small. 
"Rin doon, rin doon, my little son Jack, 
And bid the stranger stay; 
And we'll hae a crack for Auld Lang Syne, 
For the morn is Christmas Day." 

"Nay noo,...Read more of this...

The Lover And The Moon

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
A lover whom duty called over the wave,
[Pg 30]With himself communed: "Will my love be true
If left to herself? Had I better not sue
Some friend to watch over her, good and grave?
But my friend might fail in my need," he said,
"And I return to find love dead.
Since friendships fade like the flow'rs of June,
I will leave her in...Read more of this...

A Day Dream

by Emily Brontë
 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...Read more of this...

After the Sea-Ship

by Walt Whitman
 AFTER the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds; 
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes, 
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, 
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: 
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves, 
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,...Read more of this...

Sighs of Autumn Rain (3)

by Du Fu
 Chang'an commoner who notice Be locked in weigh gate watch surround wall Old people not go grow weeds Child without worry walk wind rain Rain sound sough and sigh hasten early cold West goose wing wet high fly hard Autumn come have not see white sun Mud dirt after earth what time dry  In Chang'an,...Read more of this...

The Violet

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 UPON the mead a violet stood,
Retiring, and of modest mood,

In truth, a violet fair.
Then came a youthful shepherdess,
And roam'd with sprightly joyousness,
And blithely woo'd

With carols sweet the air

"Ah!" thought the violet, "had I been
For but the smallest moment e'en

Nature's most beauteous flower,
'Till gather'd by my love, and press'd,
When weary, 'gainst her gentle breast,
For e'en, for e'en

One quarter of an...Read more of this...

Mirth And Mourning

by Anne Bronte
 'O cast away your sorrow; --
A while, at least, be gay!
If grief must come tomorrow,
At least, be glad today! 
'How can you still be sighing
When smiles are everywhere?
The little birds are flying
So blithely through the air;

'The sunshine glows so brightly
O'er all the blooming earth;
And every heart beats lightly, --
Each face is full of mirth.'

'I always feel the deepest gloom
When...Read more of this...

thirteeners

by Rg Gregory
 18
if you want a revolution attack
symbols not systems - the simple forms
that (blithely) give the truth away
tying down millions to their terms
quietly with no one answering back

where the stage is makes the play
keeps actors (meanings) to those norms
stability requires - change tack
(remove the stage) violent storms
will sweep the old regime away

eventually there'll be no going back
once new symbols breed...Read more of this...

Faithful Eckart

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 "OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home,
The phantoms of night tow'rd us hastily come,

The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They'll drink, though with toil we have fetch'd it, the beer,

And leave us the pitchers all empty."

Thus speaking, the children with fear take to flight,
When sudden an old man appears in...Read more of this...

To My Children

by Sarojini Naidu
 Jaya Surya

GOLDEN sun of victory, born 
In my life's unclouded morn, 
In my lambent sky of love, 
May your growing glory prove 
Sacred to your consecration, 
To my heart and to my nation. 
Sun of victory, may you be 
Sun of song and liberty. 

Padmaja

Lotus-maiden, you who claim 
All the sweetness of your name, 
Lakshmi, fortune's queen, defend you,...Read more of this...

During Wind And Rain

by Thomas Hardy
 They sing their dearest songs --
He, she, all of them -- yea,
Treble and tenor and bass,
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss --
Elders and juniors -- aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the...Read more of this...

Swiss Song

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 Up in th' mountain
I was a-sitting,
With the bird there
As my guest,
Blithely singing,
Blithely springing,
And building
His nest.

In the garden
I was a-standing,
And the bee there
Saw as well,
Buzzing, humming,
Going, coming,
And building
His cell.

O'er the meadow
I was a-going,
And there saw the
Butterflies,
Sipping, dancing,
Flying, glancing,
And charming
The eyes.

And then came my
Dear Hansel,
And I show'd them
With glee,
Sipping, quaffing,
And he, laughing,
Sweet kisses
Gave me.

1811....Read more of this...

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