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Famous Cloisters Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...nd think that thou shall learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal lan...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor



...Tale to tell.

Little Birds are feeding
Justices with jam,
Rich in frizzled ham:
Rich, I say, in oysters
Haunting shady cloisters -
That is what I am.

Little Birds are teaching
Tigresses to smile,
Innocent of guile:
Smile, I say, not smirkle -
Mouth a semicircle,
That's the proper style!

Little Birds are sleeping
All among the pins,
Where the loser wins:
Where, I say, he sneezes
When and how he pleases -
So the Tale begins.

Little Birds are writing
Interesting books,
To be...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis
...about;
Joy, as through a crystal gleaming,
Flashes from the gay heart out.


Pain and penitence forsaking,
Hearts like cloisters dim and grey,
By your laughter lured, awaking
Join with you the dance of day....Read more of this...
by Russell, George William
...r brilliance.
These puppets perish in the good grand glare,
Our sworded sunlight in the boundless air !
These bats need cloisters; these tame birds a cage;
How should they know the Masters of the Age?
Or understand when the archangels cry
Adoring us Ellên kat' asterh ei?...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister
...On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.

In the times when Christ was seeded around,
More than one illustrious monk, today unknown
Took for a studio the funeral grounds
And glorified Death as the one way shown.

—My soul is a tomb, an empty confine
Since ...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles



...he hear,
And through his heart there shot a pang of fear;
Trembling, he gat his sword into his hand,
And midmost of the cloisters took his stand.


But for a while that unknown noise increased,
A rattling, that with strident roars did blend
And whining moans; but suddenly it ceased,
A fearful thing stood at the cloister's end
And eyed him for a while, then 'gan to wend
Adown the cloisters, and began again
That rattling, and the moan like fiends in pain.


And as it came on to...Read more of this...
by Morris, William
...hat wakened love within, 
To answer that which came: and as they sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
That puffed the swaying branches into smoke 
Above them, ere the summer when he died 
The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale: 

`O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, 
Spring after spring, for half a hundred years: 
For never have I known the world without, 
Nor ever strayed beyond the pale: but thee, 
When first th...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ze around her.
Your words were windows,—large enough for moonlight,
Too small to let her through.
Your letters—fragrant cloisters faint with music.
The music that assuaged her there was you.

How many times she heard your step ascending
Yet never saw your face!
She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter,
Till silence swept the place.
Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . .
You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.

A certain rose-leaf—sent with...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...ze around her.
Your words were windows,—large enough for moonlight,
Too small to let her through.
Your letters—fragrant cloisters faint with music.
The music that assuaged her there was you.

How many times she heard your step ascending
Yet never saw your face!
She heard them turn again, ring slowly fainter,
Till silence swept the place.
Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . .
You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.

A certain rose-leaf—sent with...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad
...The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth
A flood of fountain-foam.

And round the cool green courts there ran a row
Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods,
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow
Of spouted fountain-floods.

And round the roofs a gilded gallery
That lent broad verge to distant lands,
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky
Dipt down to sea and sands.

From those four jets four currents in one swell
Across the mountain stream'd below
In misty folds, th...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season: never man, I think, 
So mouldered in a sinecure as he: 
For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet, 
And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 
We did but talk you over, pledge you all 
In wassail; often, like as many girls-- 
Sick for the hollies and the yews of home-- 
As many little trifling Lilias--played 
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 
And ~what's my thought~ and ~when~ and ~where~ and ~how~, 
As here...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry