Famous Boughs Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

At Home

by Christina Rossetti
 When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
For each was loved of each.

I listened to thier honest chat:
Said one: "To-morrow we shall be
Plod plod along...Read more of this...

Penelopes Song

by Louise Gluck
 Little soul, little perpetually undressed one,
Do now as I bid you, climb
The shelf-like branches of the spruce tree;
Wait at the top, attentive, like
A sentry or look-out. He will be home soon;
It behooves you to be
Generous. You have not been completely
Perfect either; with your troublesome body
You have done things you shouldn't
Discuss in poems. Therefore
Call out to him over the open...Read more of this...

From ‘Paracelsus'

by Robert Browning
 I

TRUTH is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate’er you may believe. 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception—which is truth. 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Binds it, and makes all error: and, to...Read more of this...

The Granny Grey a Love Tale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 DAME DOWSON, was a granny grey,
Who, three score years and ten,
Had pass'd her busy hours away,
In talking of the Men !
They were her theme, at home, abroad,
At wake, and by the winter fire,
Whether it froze, or blew, or thaw'd,
In sunshine or in shade, her ire
Was never calm'd; for still she made
Scandal her pleasure--and her trade!

A Grand-daughter DAME DOWSON had--
As...Read more of this...

The Nymphs Song to Hylas

by William Morris
 I KNOW a little garden-close 
Set thick with lily and red rose, 
Where I would wander if I might 
From dewy dawn to dewy night, 
And have one with me wandering. 

And though within it no birds sing, 
And though no pillar'd house is there, 
And though the apple boughs are bare 
Of fruit and blossom, would to God,...Read more of this...

The Withering Of The Boughs

by William Butler Yeats
 I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds:
'Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.'
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams.
No boughs have withered because...Read more of this...

The Wood

by Charlotte Bronte
 But two miles more, and then we rest ! 
Well, there is still an hour of day, 
And long the brightness of the West 
Will light us on our devious way; 
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ 
So total is the solitude, 
We safely may delay. 

These massive roots afford a seat, 
Which seems for weary travellers made....Read more of this...

Mementos

by Charlotte Bronte
 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These...Read more of this...

The Arbour

by Anne Bronte
 I'll rest me in this sheltered bower,
And look upon the clear blue sky
That smiles upon me through the trees,
Which stand so thickly clustering by; 
And view their green and glossy leaves,
All glistening in the sunshine fair;
And list the rustling of their boughs,
So softly whispering through the air. 

And while my ear drinks in the sound,
My winged soul shall fly...Read more of this...

Whispering in Wattle -Boughs

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 OH, gaily sings the bird! and the wattle-boughs are stirred 
And rustled by the scented breath of Spring; 
Oh, the dreary wistful longing! Oh, the faces that are thronging! 
Oh, the voices that are vaguely whispering! 

Oh, tell me, father mine, ere the good ship crossed the brine, 
On the gangway one mute handgrip we exchanged, 
Do you, past...Read more of this...

Melmillo

by Walter de la Mare
 Three and thirty birds there stood 
In an elder in a wood; 
Called Melmillo -- flew off three, 
Leaving thirty in the tree; 
Called Melmillo -- nine now gone, 
And the boughs held twenty-one; 
Called Melmillo -- and eighteen 
Left but three to nod and preen; 
Called Melmillo -- three--two--one-- 
Now of birds were feathers none. 

Then stole slim...Read more of this...

Going for Water

by Robert Frost
 The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;

Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.

We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned...Read more of this...

To Pfrimmer

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
(Lines on reading "Driftwood.")
Driftwood gathered here and there
Along the beach of time;
Now and then a chip of truth
'Mid boards and boughs of rhyme;
Driftwood gathered day by day,—
The cypress and the oak,—
Twigs that in some former time
From sturdy home trees broke.
Did this wood come floating thick
All along down "Injin Crik?"
Or did kind tides bring it thee
From the past's receding sea
Down the...Read more of this...

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti
 My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple...Read more of this...

Laughter and Tears IX

by Kahlil Gibran
 As the Sun withdrew his rays from the garden, and the moon threw cushioned beams upon the flowers, I sat under the trees pondering upon the phenomena of the atmosphere, looking through the branches at the strewn stars which glittered like chips of silver upon a blue carpet; and I could hear from a distance the agitated murmur of...Read more of this...

Scrub

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 If I grow bitterly,
Like a gnarled and stunted tree,
Bearing harshly of my youth
Puckered fruit that sears the mouth;
If I make of my drawn boughs
An Inshospitable House,
Out of which I nevery pry
Towards the water and the sky,
Under which I stand and hide
And hear the day go by outside;
It is that a wind to strong
Bent my back when I was young,
It...Read more of this...

Poor Cock Robin

by Robert William Service
 My garden robin in the Spring
Was rapturous with glee,
And followed me with wistful wing
From pear to apple tree;
His melodies the summer long
He carolled with delight,
As if he could with jewelled song
Find favour in my sight.

And now that Autumn's in the air
He's singing singing still,
And yet somehow I cannot bear
The frenzy of his bill;
The keen wind ruffs his ruddy breast
As...Read more of this...

Ash-Boughs

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 a.

Not of all my eyes see, wandering on the world, 
Is anything a milk to the mind so, so sighs deep 
Poetry to it, as a tree whose boughs break in the sky. 
Say it is ashboughs: whether on a December day and furled 
Fast ?r they in clammyish lashtender combs creep
Apart wide and new-nestle at heaven most high....Read more of this...

Autumn Daybreak

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud
At dawn, a fortnight overdue,
Jostling the doors, and tearing through
My bedroom to rejoin the cloud,
I know—for I can hear the hiss
And scrape of leaves along the floor—
How may boughs, lashed bare by this,
Will rake the cluttered sky once more.
Tardy, and somewhat south of east,
The sun will rise at length, made known
More by the meagre...Read more of this...

Lines Written in Kensington Gardens

by Matthew Arnold
 In this lone, open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end, to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand!

Birds here make song, each bird has his,
Across the girdling city's hum.
How green under the boughs it is!
How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come!

Sometimes a child will cross the glade
To take his nurse his broken toy;
Sometimes a...Read more of this...

The City Bushman

by Henry Lawson
 It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade...Read more of this...

The Planting of the Apple-Tree

by William Cullen Bryant
COME let us plant the apple-tree. 
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; 
Wide let its hollow bed be made; 
There gently lay the roots and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care 5 
And press it o'er them tenderly  
As round the sleeping infant's feet  
We softly fold the cradle sheet; 
So plant we the apple-tree....Read more of this...

In Reference to Her Children

by Anne Bradstreet
 I had eight birds hatched in one nest,
Four cocks there were, and hens the rest.
I nursed them up with pain and care,
Nor cost, nor labour did I spare,
Till at the last they felt their wing,
Mounted the trees, and learned to sing;
Chief of the brood then took his flight
To regions far and left me quite.
My mournful chirps I after send,
Till...Read more of this...

The Talking Oak

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 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...Read more of this...

Riddle

by Richard Wilbur
 Where far in forest I am laid,
In a place ringed around by stones,
Look for no melancholy shade,
And have no thoughts of buried bones;
For I am bodiless and bright,
And fill this glade with sudden glow;
The leaves are washed in under-light;
Shade lies upon the boughs like snow....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Boughs poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace