Famous Brook Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Death of Robin Hood

by Eugene Field
 "Give me my bow," said Robin Hood,
"An arrow give to me;
And where 't is shot mark thou that spot,
For there my grave shall be."

Then Little John did make no sign,
And not a word he spake;
But he smiled, altho' with mickle woe
His heart was like to break.

He raised his master in his arms,
And set him on his knee;
And Robin's eyes...Read more of this...

Ever And Everywhere

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 FAR explore the mountain hollow,
High in air the clouds then follow!

To each brook and vale the Muse

Thousand times her call renews.

Soon as a flow'ret blooms in spring,
It wakens many a strain;

And when Time spreads his fleeting wing,

The seasons come again.

1820.*...Read more of this...

In Summer Time

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
When summer time has come, and all
The world is in the magic thrall
Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,—then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and path...Read more of this...

The Second Voyage

by Rudyard Kipling
 We've sent our little Cupids all ashore --
 They were frightened, they were tired, they were cold:
Our sails of silk and purple go to store,
 And we've cut away our mast of beaten gold
  (Foul weather!)
Oh 'tis hemp and singing pine for to stand against the brine,
 But Love he is our master as of old!

The sea has...Read more of this...

In the Home Stretch

by Robert Frost
 SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And...Read more of this...

Because my Brook is fluent

by Emily Dickinson
 Because my Brook is fluent
I know 'tis dry --
Because my Brook is silent
It is the Sea --

And startled at its rising
I try to flee
To where the Strong assure me
Is "no more Sea" --...Read more of this...

The Fir-Tree and the Brook

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 The Fir-Tree looked on stars, but loved the Brook! 
"O silver-voiced! if thou wouldst wait, 
My love can bravely woo." All smiles forsook 
The brook's white face. "Too late! 
Too late! I go to wed the sea. 
I know not if my love would curse or bless thee. 
I may not, dare not, tarry to caress thee, 
Oh, do...Read more of this...

Group From Tartarus

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Hark! like the sea in wrath the heavens assailing,
Or like a brook through rocky basin wailing,
Comes from below, in groaning agony,
A heavy, vacant torment-breathing sigh!
Their faces marks of bitter torture wear,
While from their lips burst curses of despair;
Their eyes are hollow, and full of woe,
And their looks with heartfelt anguish
Seek Cocytus' stream that runs wailing below,
For the bridge o'er...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 99. Risest thou thus dim dawn again

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
So loud with voices of the birds,
So thick with lowings of the herds,
Day, when I lost the flower of men;
Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red
On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast
By meadows breathing of the past,
And woodlands holy to the dead;
Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
A song that slights the coming care,
And Autumn laying...Read more of this...

Phoebus with Admetus

by George Meredith
 WHEN by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked, 
 Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God, 
Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked, 
 Who: and what a track show'd the upturn'd sod! 
Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe 
 Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide, 
How the rustic flute drew the silver...Read more of this...

The Song of the Brook

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Oh, what would you have, you splendid sun,
  With your restless eyes of fire?
And why do you lean o'er the lilies pale?
  What more can your heart desire?
You've crimsoned the rays in the heart of the rose,
  You've drunk up the dewdrops all;
And down in the meadows your golden light
  Has gilded the daisies tall.
The thirsty...Read more of this...

The Rovers

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Over the fields we go, through the sweets of the purple clover,
That letters a message for us as for every vagrant rover;
Before us the dells are abloom, and a leaping brook calls after,
Feeling its kinship with us in lore of dreams and laughter. 

Out of the valleys of moonlight elfin voices are calling;
Down from the misty hills faint, far...Read more of this...

Hyla Brook

by Robert Frost
 By June our brook's run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)--
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against...Read more of this...

Risus Dei

by Thomas Edward Brown
 Methinks in Him there dwells alway
A sea of laughter very deep,
Where the leviathans leap,
And little children play,
Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;
But in the outer bay
The strong man drives the wedge
Of polished limbs,
And swims.
Yet there is one will say:--
'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'--
And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?

One saith that God...Read more of this...

A Calendar of Sonnets: December

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes 
Of water 'neath the summer sunshine gleamed: 
Far fairer than when placidly it streamed, 
The brook its frozen architecture makes, 
And under bridges white its swift way takes. 
Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed 
Might linger on the road; or one who deemed 
His message hostile gently for...Read more of this...

Psalm 51 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 Original and actual sin confessed.

Lord, I am vile, conceived in sin;
And born unholy and unclean;
Sprung from the man whose guilty fall
Corrupts the race, and taints us all.

Soon as we draw our infant breath,
The seeds of sin grow up for death;
Thy law demands a perfect heart,
But we're defiled in every part.

[Great God, create my heart anew,
And form my spirit pure...Read more of this...

Barb-Wire Bill

by Robert William Service
 At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim,
When Bill Mc'Gee he says to me: "We've got to do it, Jim.
We've got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river's bad,
But, oh! the little woman's sick . . . why! don't you savvy, lad?"
And me! Well, yes, I must confess it wasn't hard to see
Their...Read more of this...

The Well upon the Brook

by Emily Dickinson
 The Well upon the Brook
Were foolish to depend --
Let Brooks -- renew of Brooks --
But Wells -- of failless Ground!...Read more of this...

A Brook in the City

by Robert Frost
 The firm house lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear A number in.
But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where...Read more of this...

The brook

by Eugene Field
 I looked in the brook and saw a face -
Heigh-ho, but a child was I!
There were rushes and willows in that place,
And they clutched at the brook as the brook ran by;
And the brook it ran its own sweet way,
As a child doth run in heedless play,
And as it ran I heard it say:
"Hasten with me
To the roistering sea
That...Read more of this...

The Sea said Come to the Brook --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Sea said "Come" to the Brook --
The Brook said "Let me grow" --
The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea --
I want a Brook -- Come now"!

The Sea said "Go" to the Sea --
The Sea said "I am he
You cherished" -- "Learned Waters --
Wisdom is stale -- to Me"...Read more of this...

Yesterday (before day), in company with a charming

by Omar Khayyam
Yesterday [before day], in company with a charming
friend and a cup of rose-colored wine, I was seated on
the border of a brook. Before me stood the cup, that
shell, of which the pearl [contained in the cup] shed
such a brilliant light that the herald of the sun, awaking
with a start, announced the Dawn....Read more of this...

Have you got a Brook in your little heart

by Emily Dickinson
 Have you got a Brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so --

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there,
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there --

Why, look out for the little brook in March,
When the rivers overflow,
And the snows come hurrying from the...Read more of this...

The Youth By The Brook

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Beside the brook the boy reclined
And wove his flowery wreath,
And to the waves the wreath consigned--
The waves that danced beneath.
"So fleet mine hours," he sighed, "away
Like waves that restless flow:
And so my flowers of youth decay
Like those that float below."

"Ask not why I, alone on earth,
Am sad in life's young time;
To all the rest are hope and mirth
When spring...Read more of this...

The Brook

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I come from haunts of coot and hern, 
I make a sudden sally 
And sparkle out among the fern, 
To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down, 
Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorpes, a little town, 
And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
To join the brimming river, 
For...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Brook 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