Famous Calm Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Calm poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous calm poems. These examples illustrate what a famous calm poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
G K Chesterton
For every tiny town or place
God made the stars especially;
Babies look up with owlish face
And see them tangled in a tree;
You saw a moon from Sussex Downs,
A Sussex moon, untravelled still,
I saw a moon that was the town's,
The largest lamp on Campden Hill.
Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home
The big blue cap that always fits,
And so it is (be calm;...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
My little love, my darling,
You were a doorway to me;
You let me out of the confines
Into this strange countrie,
Where people are crowded like thistles,
Yet are shapely and comely to see.
My little love, my dearest
Twice have you issued me,
Once from your womb, sweet mother,
Once from myself, to be
Free of all hearts, my darling,
Of each...Read more of this...
by
Wallace Stevens
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
This is the yarn he told me
As we sat in Casey's Bar,
That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug
In the Land of the Crimson Star;
That Soviet guy with the single eye,
And the face like a flaming scar.
Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb,...Read more of this...
by
Osip Mandelstam
What shall I do with this body they gave me,
so much my own, so intimate with me?
For being alive, for the joy of calm breath,
tell me, who should I bless?
I am the flower, and the gardener as well,
and am not solitary, in earth’s cell.
My living warmth, exhaled, you can see,
on the clear glass of eternity.
A pattern set down,
until now,...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
XI. — EPODE. And her black spite expel, Which to effect (since no breast is so sure, Or safe, but she'll procure Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard Of thoughts to watch, and ward At the eye and ear, the ports unto the mind, Give knowledge instantly, To wakeful reason, our affections' king : Who, in th' examining,...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Phillipians, iv.11)
Fierce passions discompose the mind,
As tempests vex the sea,
But calm, content and peace we find,
When, Lord, we turn to Thee.
In vain by reason and by rule
We try to bend the will;
For none but in the Saviour's school
Can learn the heavenly skill.
Since at His feet my soul has sate,
His gracious words to hear,
Contented with my present state,
I cast on...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze.
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My Daddy used to wallop me for every small offense:
"Its takes a hair-brush back," said he, "to teach kids common-sense."
And still to-day I scarce can look a hair-brush in the face.
Without I want in sympathy to pat a tender place.
For Dad declared with unction: "Spare the brush and spoil the brat."
The dear old man! What e'er his faults he...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do...
I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you.
I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew.
But you shall know. I’ve carried in my heart too long
This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your wrong—
Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with grey
Unfruitful...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
IN the little southern parlor of tbe house you may have seen
With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green,
At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right,
Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night!
Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came!
What a cry of eager voices, what a group of...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
In love’s great ocean, whose calm-shelter’d shore
Must he for ever leave, whose soul is bound
On farthest quest, life’s wonders to explore—
That mightiest flood, all-whelming, torment-toss’d,
Wherein must ev’ry lover’s self be lost
Ere the Belovéd’s lovelier self be found—
Think not, O searcher, in that sea to find
Food for thine earth-born strength & lustful show,
Nor glorious pearl to deck thy worldly mind,
Nor isle...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
'Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear.
There's nothing can dismarble now
The smoothness of that limpid brow.
But is a calm like this, in truth,
The crowning end of life and youth,
And when this boon rewards the dead,
Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light,
Its step so firm,...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
Oh Amber Eyes, oh Golden Eyes!
Oh Eyes so softly gay!
Wherein swift fancies fall and rise,
Grow dark and fade away.
Eyes like a little limpid pool
That holds a sunset sky,
While on its surface, calm and...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
SILENCE deep rules o'er the waters,
Calmly slumb'ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble
Nought but one vast level plain.
Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is ev'ry wave.
1795....Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
FIRST SPIRIT
O thou, who plum'd with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire--
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there--
Night is coming!SECOND SPIRIT
The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden;
around that the forest. Anashuya, the young priestess, kneeling
within the temple.
Anashuya. Send peace on all the lands and flickering
corn. -
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other. - Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful. - And if he love another,
May...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
And I shall know the sense of life...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Godfrey
DAMON.
Haste! Sylvia! haste, my charming Maid!
Let's leave these fashionable toys;
Let's seek the shelter of some shade,
And revel in ne'er fading joys.
See spring in liv'ry gay appears,
And winter's chilly blasts are fled;
Each grove its leafy honours rears,
And meads their lovely verdure spread!
SYLVIA.
Yes Damon, glad I'll quit the town,
Its gaities now languid seem;
Then sweets to luxury unknown
We'll taste, and sip th'...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark --
Where'er blows the welcome wind,
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad than those we leave behind.
Each wave that passes seems to say,
"Though death beneath our smile may be,
Less cold we are, less false than they,
Whose smiling wreck'd thy hopes and thee."
Sail on, sail...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
The ant has made herself illustrious
By constant industry industrious.
So what? Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
The conversation of prayers about to be said
By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs
Who climbs to his dying love in her high room,
The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move
And the other full of tears that she will be dead,
Turns in the dark on the sound they know will arise
Into...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Oh! the calm summer garden where nothing moves! Unless it be, near the middle of the bright and radiant pond, the goldfish like tongues of fire.
They are our memories playing in our thoughts that are calm and stilled and limpid, like the trustful and restful water.
And the water brightens and the fishes leap at the abrupt and marvellous sun, not...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Soothing his Passions with a warb'ling Sound,
A Shepherd-Swain lay stretch'd upon the Ground;
Whilst all were mov'd, who their Attention lent,
Or with the Harmony in Chorus went,
To something less than Joy, yet more than dull Content.
(Between which two Extreams true Pleasure lies,
O'er-run by Fools, unreach'd-at by the Wise )
But yet, a fatal Prospect to the Sea
Wou'd often...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uplift their shadowing heads, and, at their feet,
Scarce hear the surge that has for ages beat,
Sure many a lonely wanderer has stood;
And whilst the lifted murmur met his ear,
And o'er the distant billows the still eve
Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave
Tomorrow; of the friends he loved most...Read more of this...
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