Famous Bright Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Bright poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bright poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bright poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Dickinson, Emily
...r a Bun, would be,
Might it an Apricot!
1129
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
1705
Volcanoes be in Sicily
And South America
I judge from my Geography—
Volcanos nearer here
A Lava step at any time
Am I inclined to climb—
A Crater I may contemplate
V...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...r with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers
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 ...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portion'd to a giant nerve,
Oft made Hyperion ache. His palace bright,
Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold,
And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glar'd a blood-red through all its thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flush'd angerly: while sometimes eagles' wings,
Unseen before by Gods or wondering men,
Darken'd the place; and neighing steeds were he...Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
...bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged...Read more of this...
by
Alighieri, Dante
...ke thee, confident
Not vainly for his need the gold were spent
Of thy word-wisdom.' Here she turned away,
Her bright eyes clouded with their tears, and I,
Who saw them, therefore made more haste to reach
The place she told, and found thee. Canst thou say
I failed thy rescue? Is the beast anigh
From which ye quailed? When such dear saints beseech
- Three from the Highest - that Heaven thy course allow
Why halt ye fearful? In such guards as thou
The ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...ets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.
II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main? ...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...n and sunny Glade, There came, and look'd him in the face, An Angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew, it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight! And that, unknowing what he did, He leapt amid a murd'rous Band, And sav'd from Outrage worse than Death The Lady of the Land; And how she wept and cl...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...sts the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall,
And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds;
There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds;
But never an echo of your daughters' laughter
Is there, nor any sign of you at all
Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria!
Only her shadow once upon a stone
I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.
I tell you you have done her body an ill...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...She walks in Beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth! rich, apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes!
Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love!
22
You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean;
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers;
I believ...Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...e a painted plan,
And by the side the low white house,
Where dwelt the southland man.
A bronzed man, with a bird's bright eye,
And a strong bird's beak and brow,
His skin was brown like buried gold,
And of certain of his sires was told
That they came in the shining ship of old,
With Caesar in the prow.
His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine.Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...ge that her thoughts enfold?
19
Rejoice, ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell,
Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright;
And that your names, remember'd day and night,
Live on the lips of those that love you well.
'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of hell,
Each with the special grace of your delight:
Ye are the world's creators, and thro' might
Of everlasting love ye did excel.
Now ye are starry names, above the storm
And war of Time and nature's endless ...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...t-love of a child!
Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!
PREFACE
If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.18)
"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."
In view of t...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...k have you set Him whom you love, your idiot boy? Beneath the moon that shines so bright, Till she is tired, let Betty Foy With girt and stirrup fiddle-faddle; But wherefore set upon a saddle Him whom she loves, her idiot boy? There's scarce a soul that's out of bed; Good Betty put him down again; His lips with joy they burr at...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...a day,
But onward on his way that night he lay:
And sent anon Hippolyta the queen,
And Emily her younge sister sheen* *bright, lovely
Unto the town of Athens for to dwell:
And forth he rit*; there is no more to tell. *rode
The red statue of Mars with spear and targe* *shield
So shineth in his white banner large
That all the fieldes glitter up and down:
And by his banner borne is his pennon
Of gold full rich, in which there was y-beat* *stamped
The Minotaur which that...Read more of this...
by
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...within each other's atmosphere
Kindle invisibly; and as they glow
Like moths by light attracted & repelled,
Oft to new bright destruction come & go.
Till like two clouds into one vale impelled
That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
And die in rain,--the fiery band which held
Their natures, snaps . . . ere the shock cease to tingle
One falls and then another in the path
Senseless, nor is the desolation single,
Yet ere I can say where the chariot...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...re the gate, and in his shroud
Seated their fellow traveller on a cloud.
XXIV
But bringing up the rear of this bright host
A Spirit of a different aspect waves
His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast
Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved;
His brow was like the deep when tempest-toss'd;
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved
Eternal wrath on his immortal face,
And where he gazed a gloom pervaded space.
XXV
As he drew near, he gazed...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc'd.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: do...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...so prodigal?
Here is my son.
His wide eye is that general, flat blue.
He is turning to me like a little, blind, bright plant.
One cry. It is the hook I hang on.
And I am a river of milk.
I am a warm hill.
SECOND VOICE:
I am not ugly. I am even beautiful.
The mirror gives back a woman without deformity.
The nurses give back my clothes, and an identity.
It is usual, they say, for such a thing to happen.
It is usual in my life, an...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...s
Over the river.
Noisy elm trees, noisy lindens
In the gardens dark,
Raised to God, the needle-bearing
Stars' bright diamond sparks.
Sacrificial and glorious
Way, I am ending here,
With me is but you, my equal,
And my love so dear.
x x x
It seems as though the voice of man
Will never sound in this place,
But only wind from age of stone
Is knocking on black gates.
It seems to me that I alone
Have kept good health under this sky,
Beca...Read more of this...
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