Famous Cave In Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Allegory Of The Cave

by Stephen Dunn
 He climbed toward the blinding light
and when his eyes adjusted
he looked down and could see

his fellow prisoners captivated
by shadows; everything he had believed
was false. And he was suddenly

in the 20th century, in the sunlight
and violence of history, encumbered
by knowledge. Only a hero

would dare return with the truth.
So from the cave's upper reaches,
removed from harm, he called out

the disturbing news.
What...Read more of this...

Dream Barker

by Jean Valentine
 We met for supper in your flat-bottomed boat. 
I got there first: in a white dress: I remember
Wondering if you'd come. Then you shot over the bank, 
A Virgilian ****** Jim, and poled us off
To a little sea-food barker's cave you knew.

What'll you have? you said. Eels hung down, 
Bamboozled claws hung up from the crackling weeds. 
The light...Read more of this...

The Source

by W S Merwin
 There in the fringe of trees between
the upper field and the edge of the one
below it that runs above the valley
one time I heard in the early
days of summer the clear ringing
six notes that I knew were the opening
of the Fingal's Cave Overture
I heard them again and again that year
and the next summer and the year
afterward those six descending
notes...Read more of this...

Answers In A Game Of Questions

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE LADY.

IN the small and great world too,

What most charms a woman's heart?
It is doubtless what is new,

For its blossoms joy impart;
Nobler far is what is true,

For fresh blossoms it can shoot

Even in the time of fruit.

THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN.

With the Nymphs in wood and cave

Paris was acquainted well,
Till Zeus sent, to make him rave,

Three of those in Heav'n who...Read more of this...

Entanglements

by Barry Tebb
 Why is it that in dreams I have visited -

As teacher or pupil - almost every college and school

In our once so green and pleasant land?

Hardly a subject from art to anthropology I have not

In dream seminar or floating spinning classroom

Studied or tried my prentice hand at, or learned

At the sandalled feet of some guru; as this minute

I returned...Read more of this...

Demeter And Persephone

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
Falls on the threshold of her native land,
And can no more, thou camest, O my child,
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,
Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb,
With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
When...Read more of this...

Millenial Hymn to Lord Shiva

by Kathleen Raine
 Earth no longer
hymns the Creator,
the seven days of wonder,
the Garden is over —
all the stories are told,
the seven seals broken
all that begins
must have its ending,
our striving, desiring,
our living and dying,
for Time, the bringer
of abundant days
is Time the destroyer —
In the Iron Age
the Kali Yuga
To whom can we pray
at the end of an era
but the Lord Shiva,
the Liberator, the purifier?

Our...Read more of this...

In The Naked Bed In Platos Cave

by Delmore Schwartz
 In the naked bed, in Plato's cave, 
Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,
Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,
Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,
A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,
Their freights covered, as usual.
The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram
Slid slowly forth.
 Hearing the milkman's clop,
his striving up the stair, the bottle's chink,
I rose from bed, lit a...Read more of this...

396. Song—Wandering Willie

by Robert Burns
 HERE awa, there awa, wandering Willie,
 Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;
Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie,
 And tell me thou bring’st me my Willie the same.
Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;
 It was na the blast brought the tear in my e’e:
Now welcome the Simmer, and welcome my Willie,
 The Simmer to...Read more of this...

Treat Em Rough

by Robert William Service
 First time I dared propose,
 A callow lad was I;
I donned my Sunday clothes,
 I wore my Old School Tie.
Awaiting me Louise
 Was dolled to beat the band,
So going on my knees
 I begged her hand.

Oh yes, she gave me her hand,--
 A box upon the ear;
I could not understand,
 I blinked away a tear.
Then scornfully she said:
 'Next...Read more of this...

The New Remorse

by Oscar Wilde
 The sin was mine; I did not understand.
So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,
That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen Winter's hand.

But who is this who cometh by...Read more of this...

425. Song—Had I a cave

by Robert Burns
 HAD I a cave on some wild distant shore,
Where the winds howl to the wave’s dashing roar:
 There would I weep my woes,
 There seek my lost repose,
 Till grief my eyes should close,
 Ne’er to wake more!


Falsest of womankind, can’st thou declare
All thy fond, plighted vows fleeting as air!
 To thy new lover hie,
 Laugh o’er thy perjury;
...Read more of this...

A Bridal Measure

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Come, essay a sprightly measure,
Tuned to some light song of pleasure.
Maidens, let your brows be crowned
As we foot this merry round.
From the ground a voice is singing,
From the sod a soul is springing.
Who shall say 't is but a clod
Quick'ning upward toward its God?
Who shall say it? Who may know it,
That the clod is not a poet
Waiting but a gleam...Read more of this...

On A Great Hollow Tree

by William Strode
 Preethee stand still awhile, and view this tree
Renown'd and honour'd for antiquitie
By all the neighbour twiggs; for such are all
The trees adjoyning, bee they nere so tall,
Comparde to this: if here Jacke Maypole stood
All men would sweare 'twere but a fishing rodde.
Mark but the gyant trunk, which when you see
You see how many woods and groves there bee
Compris'd within...Read more of this...

Winter Seascape

by John Betjeman
 The sea runs back against itself
With scarcely time for breaking wave
To cannonade a slatey shelf
And thunder under in a cave.

Before the next can fully burst
The headwind, blowing harder still,
Smooths it to what it was at first -
A slowly rolling water-hill.

Against the breeze the breakers haste,
Against the tide their ridges run
And all the sea's a dappled waste
Criss-crossing underneath the sun.

Far...Read more of this...

One of the Shepherds

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 We were out on the hills that night 
To watch our sheep; 
Drowsily by the fire we lay 
Where the waning flame did flicker and leap, 
And some were weary and half asleep, 
And some talked low of their flocks and the fright 
Of a lion that day. 

But I had drawn from the others apart; 
I was only...Read more of this...

Salve!

by Thomas Edward Brown
 TO live within a cave--it is most good; 
 But, if God make a day, 
 And some one come, and say, 
'Lo! I have gather'd faggots in the wood!' 
 E'en let him stay, 
And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood! 

So sit till morning! when the light is grown 
 That he the path can...Read more of this...

Narva and Mored

by Thomas Chatterton
 Recite the loves of Narva and Mored 
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said. 
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung, 
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung: 
In all the mystic mazes of the dance, 
The youths of Banny's burning sands advance, 
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind, 
And rides upon the pinions of the...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXVII: On Passing over a Dreary Tract

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 Swift fleet the billowy clouds along the sky,
Earth seems to shudder at the storm aghast;
While only beings as forlorn as I,
Court the chill horrors of the howling blast.
Even round yon crumbling walls, in search of food,
The ravenous Owl foregoes his evening flight,
And in his cave, within the deepest wood,
The Fox eludes the tempest of the night.
But to my heart...Read more of this...

The Opal Dream Cave

by Katherine Mansfield
 In an opal dream cave I found a fairy:
Her wings were frailer than flower petals,
Frailer far than snowflakes.
She was not frightened, but poised on my finger,
Then delicately walked into my hand.
I shut the two palms of my hands together
And held her prisoner.
I carried her out of the opal cave,
Then opened my hands.
First she became thistledown,
Then a mote in a...Read more of this...

The Cave Of The Unborn

by Thomas Hardy
 I rose at night and visited
The Cave of the Unborn,
And crowding shapes surrounded me
For tidings of the life to be,
Who long had prayed the silent Head
To speed their advent morn.

Their eyes were lit with artless trust;
Hope thrilled their every tone:
"A place the loveliest, is it not?
A pure delight, a beauty-spot
Where all is gentle, pure and just
And ??violence?? is unknown?"

My...Read more of this...

188. Song—Strathallan's Lament

by Robert Burns
 THICKEST 1 night, o’erhang my dwelling!
 Howling tempests, o’er me rave!
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling,
 Roaring by my lonely cave!


Crystal streamlets gently flowing,
 Busy haunts of base mankind,
Western breezes softly blowing,
 Suit not my distracted mind.


In the cause of Right engaged,
 Wrongs injurious to redress,
Honour’s war we strongly waged,
 But the Heavens denied success.
Ruin’s wheel has driven o’er us,
 Not...Read more of this...

Variation On The Word Sleep

by Margaret Atwood
 I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like...Read more of this...

My Mothers Body

by Marge Piercy
 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the...Read more of this...

To The Author Of Glare

by David Lehman
 There comes a time when the story turns into twenty
different stories and soon after that he academy of shadows
retreats to the cave of a solitary boy in a thriving

metropolis where no one remembers the original story
whic is, of course, a sign of its great success: to be forgotten
implies you were once known, and that is something we

can prize more...Read more of this...

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