Famous Calmness Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Glory Of The Heavens

by Emile Verhaeren
Shining in dim transparence, the whole of infinity lies
Behind the veil that the finger of radiant winter weaves
And down on us falls the foliage of stars in glittering sheaves;
From out the depths of the forest, the forest obscure of the skies,


The wingèd sea with her shadowy floods as of dappled silk
Speeds, 'neath the golden fires, her pale immensity o'er;
And diamond-rayed,...Read more of this...

The Lover in Hell

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 Eternally the choking steam goes up 
From the black pools of seething oil. . . . 
How merry 
Those little devils are! They've stolen the pitchfork 
From Bel, there, as he slept . . . Look! -- oh look, look! 
They've got at Nero! Oh it isn't fair! 
Lord, how he squeals! Stop it . . . it's, well...Read more of this...

From Shadow

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Now the November skies,
And the clouds that are thin and gray,
That drop with the wind away;
A flood of sunlight rolls,
In a tide of shallow light,
Gold on the land and white
On the water, dim and warm in the wood;
Then it is gone, and the wan
Clear of the shade
Covers fields and barren and glade.
The peace of labor done,
Is wide in the...Read more of this...

Indian Summer

by Henry Van Dyke
 A soft veil dims the tender skies,
And half conceals from pensive eyes
The bronzing tokens of the fall;
A calmness broods upon the hills,
And summer's parting dream distills
A charm of silence over all.

The stacks of corn, in brown array,
Stand waiting through the placid day,
Like tattered wigwams on the plain;
The tribes that find a shelter there
Are phantom peoples, forms of air,
And ghosts...Read more of this...

Breath of the Informer an Allegory

by T Wignesan
Remorseful, the noonday sun
Frizzles with the stealthy wind
Under the rubbery mountain green.
A calmness has come to rest
From having tossed in its sleep.
The forest has taken leave
Of the hunted horn and drum.
No more the tapper late of nap
Scurries to the haven of a nest.
No more the rattle whisper fades
To nothingness in a lonesome rest.
No more, no more, for the heavens
Sleep and...Read more of this...

Dead

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
A knock is at her door, but she is weak;
Strange dews have washed the paint streaks from her cheek;
She does not rise, but, ah, this friend is known,
And knows that he will find her all alone.
So opens he the door, and with soft tread
Goes straightway to the richly curtained bed.
His soft hand on her dewy head he lays.
A strange white...Read more of this...

To a foil'd European Revolutionaire

by Walt Whitman
 1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister! 
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs; 
That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures, 
Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, 
Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.

Revolt! and still...Read more of this...

The Crowded Street

by William Cullen Bryant
LET me move slowly through the street  
Filled with an ever-shifting train  
Amid the sound of steps that beat 
The murmuring walks like autumn rain. 

How fast the flitting figures come! 5 
The mild the fierce the stony face; 
Some bright with thoughtless smiles and some 
Where secret tears have left their trace. 

They pass¡ªto toil to strife...Read more of this...

The Universal Prayer

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ma fille, va prier!") 
 
 {XXXVII., June, 1830.} 


 I. 
 
 Come, child, to prayer; the busy day is done, 
 A golden star gleams through the dusk of night; 
 The hills are trembling in the rising mist, 
 The rumbling wain looms dim upon the sight; 
 All things wend home to rest; the roadside...Read more of this...

Massachusetts To Virginia

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go;
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A...Read more of this...

The Captives Dream

by Anne Bronte
 Methought I saw him but I knew him not;
He was so changed from what he used to be,
There was no redness on his woe-worn cheek,
No sunny smile upon his ashy lips,
His hollow wandering eyes looked wild and fierce,
And grief was printed on his marble brow,
And O I thought he clasped his wasted hands,
And raised his haggard eyes to Heaven,...Read more of this...

In Plaster

by Sylvia Plath
 I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one.
She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints.
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality --
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And...Read more of this...

To Hannah

by Henry Lawson
 Spirit girl to whom 'twas given 
To revisit scenes of pain, 
From the hell I thought was Heaven 
You have lifted me again; 
Through the world that I inherit, 
Where I loved her ere she died, 
I am walking with the spirit 
Of a dead girl by my side. 

Through my old possessions only 
For a very little while,...Read more of this...

The Christ-sword

by George William Russell
 THE WHILE my mad brain whirled around
She only looked with eyes elate
Immortal love at me. I found
How deep the glance of love can wound,
How cruel pity is to hate.


I was begirt with hostile spears:
My angel warred in me for you
Whose gentle calmness all too fierce
Made unseen lightnings to pierce
My heart that dripped with ruddy dew.


I know how on the...Read more of this...

HERODIAS Daughter presenting to her Mother St. JOHNs Head in a Charger also Painted by her self

by Anne Killigrew
 BEhold, dear Mother, who was late our Fear, 
Disarm'd and Harmless, I present you here; 
The Tongue ty'd up, that made all Jury quake, 
And which so often did our Greatness shake; 

No Terror sits upon his Awful Brow, 
Where Fierceness reign'd, there Calmness triumphs now; 
As Lovers use, he gazes on my Face, 
With Eyes that languish, as...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes?
We are not of one mind. Are not like birds
in unison migrating. And overtaken,
overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind
and fall to earth into indifferent ponds.
Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one.
And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware,
in their magnificence, of any weaknesss.

But we, while wholly concentrating on one thing,
already feel the...Read more of this...

Farewell Frost Or Welcome Spring

by Robert Herrick
 Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appear
Reclothed in fresh and verdant diaper;
Thaw'd are the snows; and now the lusty Spring
Gives to each mead a neat enamelling;
The palms put forth their gems, and every tree
Now swaggers in her leafy gallantry.
The while the Daulian minstrel sweetly sings
With warbling notes her Terean sufferings.
--What gentle winds perspire! as if here
Never had...Read more of this...

Chattanooga

by Herman Melville
 (November, 1863)

A kindling impulse seized the host
Inspired by heaven's elastic air;
Their hearts outran their General's plan,
Though Grant commanded there - 
Grant, who without reserve can dare;
And, "Well, go on and do your will,"
He said, and measured the mountain then:
So master-riders fling the rein - 
But you must know your men.

On yester-morn in grayish mist,
Armies like ghosts on hills had...Read more of this...

The Blackbirds Are Rough Today

by Charles Bukowski
 lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.

shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.

taken by tears like 
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere...Read more of this...

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