Famous Break Of Day Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Towards Break Of Day

by William Butler Yeats
 Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?

I thought: "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.

I would have...Read more of this...

Niagara

by Vachel Lindsay
 I

Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:
Niagara, Niagara.

The women buy their lace and cry: —
"O such a delicate design,"
And over ostrich feathers sigh,
By counters there, in Buffalo.
The children haunt the trinket shops,
They buy false-faces, bells, and tops,
Forgetting great...Read more of this...

Waring

by Robert Browning
 I

What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London-town?

Who'd have guessed it from his lip,
Or his brow's accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship,
Or started landward?—little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together,
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home through...Read more of this...

The Huntsmen

by Walter de la Mare
 Three jolly gentlemen, 
In coats of red, 
Rode their horses 
Up to bed. 

Three jolly gentlemen 
Snored till morn, 
Their horses champing 
The golden corn. 

Three jolly gentlemen 
At break of day, 
Came clitter-clatter down the stairs 
And galloped away. 
...Read more of this...

33. Song—'Indeed will I' quo' Findlay

by Robert Burns
 “WHA is that at my bower-door?”
 “O wha is it but Findlay!”
“Then gae your gate, ye’se nae be here:”
 “Indeed maun I,” quo’ Findlay;
“What mak’ ye, sae like a thief?”
 “O come and see,” quo’ Findlay;
“Before the morn ye’ll work mischief:”
 “Indeed will I,” quo’ Findlay.


“Gif I rise and let you in”—
 “Let me in,” quo’ Findlay;
“Ye’ll keep me...Read more of this...

His Boys

by Robert William Service
 "I'm going, Billy, old fellow. Hist, lad! Don't make any noise.
There's Boches to beat all creation, the pitch of a bomb away.
I've fixed the note to your collar, you've got to get back to my Boys,
You've got to get back to warn 'em before it's the break of day."

The order came to go forward to a trench-line traced on...Read more of this...

The Isles of Greece

by George (Lord) Byron
 The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus
sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set...

The mountains look on Marathon--
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians'...Read more of this...

The Three Beggars

by William Butler Yeats
 'Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day.
I have not found a thing to eat,
For only rubbish comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?'
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
'For all my pains on lebeen-lone?'

King Guaire walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said,
'You that have wandered far...Read more of this...

Intorduction to the Songs of Experience

by William Blake
 Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient tree;

Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!

'O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.

'Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou...Read more of this...

Excelsior

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THE SHADES of night were falling fast  
As through an Alpine village passed 
A youth who bore 'mid snow and ice  
A banner with the strange device  
Excelsior! 5 

His brow was sad; his eye beneath  
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath  
And like a silver clarion rung 
The accents of that unknown tongue...Read more of this...

The Trail O' Love

by Badger Clark
  My love was swift and slender
    As an antelope at play,
  And her eyes were gray and tender
    As the east at break o' day,
  And I sure was shaky hearted
    And her flower face was pale
  On that silver night we parted,
   ...Read more of this...

No Beer No Work

by Ellis Parker Butler
 The shades of night was fallin’ slow
As through New York a guy did go
 And nail on ev’ry barroom door
 A card that this here motter bore:
 “No beer, no work.”

His brow was sad, his mouth was dry;
It was the first day of July,
 And where, all parched and scorched it hung,
 These words was stenciled on his tongue:
...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVI: Who Shall Invoke Her

by Alan Seeger
 Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest,
With single rites the common debt to pay?
On some green headland fronting to the East
Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day.
Naked, uplifting in a laden tray
New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine,
Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray
To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine.
The morning planet poised above the...Read more of this...

The Black Birds

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

Once, only once, I saw it clear, --
That Eden every human heart has dreamed
A hundred times, but always far away!
Ah, well do I remember how it seemed,
Through the still atmosphere
Of that enchanted day,
To lie wide open to my weary feet:
A little land of love and joy and rest,
With meadows of soft green,
Rosy with cyclamen, and sweet
With delicate breath...Read more of this...

Sonnets XXIX: When in disgrace with fortune and mens eyes

by William Shakespeare
 When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts...Read more of this...

Break Of Day

by John Donne
 'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise? because 'tis light?
Did we lie down, because 'twas night?
Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;
If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst, that...Read more of this...

Christmas At Sea

by Robert Louis Stevenson
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill...Read more of this...

Sonnets ii

by William Shakespeare
 WHEN, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, 
I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
And look upon myself, and curse my fate, 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possest, 
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
With what I...Read more of this...

The First Of May

by Mother Goose
The fair maid who, the first of May,
Goes to the fields at break of day,
And washes in dew from the hawthorn-tree,
Will ever after handsome be....Read more of this...

Anthem

by Leonard Cohen
 The birds they sang 
at the break of day 
Start again 
I heard them say 
Don't dwell on what 
has passed away 
or what is yet to be. 
Ah the wars they will 
be fought again 
The holy dove 
She will be caught again 
bought and sold 
and bought again 
the dove is never free. 
Ring the bells that...Read more of this...

Break of Day

by Siegfried Sassoon
 There seemed a smell of autumn in the air 
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there 
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, 
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay 
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, ‘To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, 
Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in 
Under...Read more of this...

490. Song—The charming month of May

by Robert Burns
 IT was the charming month of May,
When all the flow’rs were fresh and gay.
One morning, by the break of day,
 The youthful, charming Chloe—
From peaceful slumber she arose,
Girt on her mantle and her hose,
And o’er the flow’ry mead she goes—
 The youthful, charming Chloe.


Chorus.—Lovely was she by the dawn,
 Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe,
Tripping o’er the pearly lawn,
 The youthful,...Read more of this...

Break of Day in the Trenches

by Isaac Rosenberg
 The darkness crumbles away 
It is the same old druid Time as ever, 
Only a live thing leaps my hand, 
A ***** sardonic rat, 
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear. 
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew 
Your cosmopolitan sympathies, 
Now you have touched this English hand 
You will do the same to...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIX

by William Shakespeare
 When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts...Read more of this...

Know you why, at the break of day, the early-rising

by Omar Khayyam
Know you why, at the break of day, the early-rising
cock makes its voice heard each moment? It is to tell
you, through the mirror of the morning, that one more
night has slipped away from your existence, and that
you are still in ignorance....Read more of this...

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