Famous Color Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Color poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous color poems. These examples illustrate what a famous color poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert Frost
A SATURATED meadow,
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers, --
A temple of the hear.
There we bowed us in the burning,
As the sun's right worship is,
To pick where none could miss them
A thousand orchises;
For though the grass was scattered,
yet every second spear
Seemed...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
I am too big. Too big by far. Pity me.
My eyes bulge and hurt. They are my one great beauty, even
so. They see too much, above, below. And yet, there is not much
to see. The rain has stopped. The mist is gathering on my skin
in drops. The drops run down my back, run from...Read more of this...
by
John Crowe Ransom
Conrad, Conrad, aren't you old
To sit so late in your mouldy garden?
And I think Conrad knows it well,
Nursing his knees, too rheumy and cold
To warm the wraith of a Forest of Arden.
Neuralgia in the back of his neck,
His lungs filling with such miasma,
His feet dipping in leafage and muck:
Conrad! you've forgotten...Read more of this...
by
Jerome Rothenberg
All erasure of pain
is like the contrary of
dust that weighs
dark in my lungs
when I am
feckless with disgust.
I stroke & poke
my loins before
they tighten.
My feet stomp
fields of color
reminding me of
something I once knew.
Dying frees
the spirit
from the mind.
We plod along
regardless of
the pain.
Soon we grow
big & fat.
We stop
forgetting, far off
from whatever
binds us
mindlessly
to empty space.
Beginning here
we reignite
desire.
We will surrender
what...Read more of this...
by
Czeslaw Milosz
You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a...Read more of this...
by
Jerome Rothenberg
I kill for pleasure
not for gain.
A man much more
than you my hands
find knives
& flash them.
I am guilty
in my works
while in their eyes
I seek redemption.
I find myself
forgotten
angry at the thought
of bread. I will not
eat my poem(A. Artaud)
much less be raped
by it. I have a home
but sit with others
shirtless, waiting
for the moon to rise.
I am a warrior
grown old.
The number on my...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Lux
The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
Today the circus poster
is scabbing off the concrete wall
and the children have forgotten
if they knew at all.
Father, do you remember?
Only the sound remains,
the distant thump of the good elephants,
the voice of the ancient lions
and how the bells
trembled for the flying man.
I, laughing,
lifted to your high shoulder
or small at the rough legs of strangers,
was not afraid.
You held my hand
and were...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Color of a Queen, is this --
The Color of a Sun
At setting -- this and Amber --
Beryl -- and this, at Noon --
And when at night -- Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men --
'Tis this -- and Witchcraft -- nature keeps
A Rank -- for Iodine --...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
For one brief golden moment rare like wine,
The gracious city swept across the line;
Oblivious of the color of my skin,
Forgetting that I was an alien guest,
She bent to me, my hostile heart to win,
Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast;
The great, proud city, seized with a strange love,
Bowed down for one...Read more of this...
by
Yves Bonnefoy
Another time.
It was still night. Water slid
Silently on the black ground,
And I knew that my only task would be
To remember, and I laughed,
I bent down, I took from the mud
A pile of branches and leaves,
I lifted up the whole dripping mass
In arms I held close to my heart.
What to do with this wood where
The sound of color rose from...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
If the Wheel of Heaven refuses me peace, am I not
ready for war? If I have not an honorable reputation,
have I not shame for myself? Here is the cup full of
wine the color of rubies; he who will not drink of it, has
he not his head and a stone?...Read more of this...
by
John Matthew
White, pristine, unblemished
They say it is not a color
I love white mists, clouds
Lingering on blue mountains.
White, no shades
No off white, cream
Pure as snow on shimmering peaks
Is my favorite sight.
Nurses, priests, politicians
Are bound, chained to white
White nebulous clouds
evoke deep nostalgic thoughts.
They swaddled my father in white
As he lay in the black coffin
His best shirt was white
His loin cloth was white.
The...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
There will be mud on the carpet tonight
and blood in the gravy as well.
The wifebeater is out,
the childbeater is out
eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup.
He strides bback and forth
in front of my study window
chewing little red pieces of my heart.
His eyes flash like a birthday cake
and he makes bread out of rock.
Yesterday he was walking
like a man...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Judgment is justest
When the Judged,
His action laid away,
Divested is of every Disk
But his sincerity.
Honor is then the safest hue
In a posthumous Sun --
Not any color will endure
That scrutiny can burn....Read more of this...
by
Countee Cullen
"Lord, being dark," I said, "I cannot bear
The further touch of earth, the scented air;
Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair
My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt
Beneath my brother's heel; there is a hurt
In all the simple joys which to a child
Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled
By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails
To see; too great...Read more of this...
by
Wanda Phipps
if she took off her top
would that embarrass you
would you smile and laugh newvously
would there be
room on the roof
for the orgy
if the music was a little louder
would you remember
the color of her eyes...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Color of the Grave is Green --
The Outer Grave -- I mean --
You would not know it from the Field --
Except it own a Stone --
To help the fond -- to find it --
Too infinite asleep
To stop and tell them where it is --
But just a Daisy -- deep --
The Color of the Grave is white --
The outer...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
BURLY dozing humble-bee
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique
Far-off heats through seas to seek;
I will follow thee alone 5
Thou animated torrid-zone!
Zigzag steerer desert cheerer
Let me chase thy waving lines;
Keep me nearer me thy hearer
Singing over shrubs and vines. 10
Insect lover of...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Imitate the tulip which flowers at New-year's; take, like
her, a cup in thy hand and, if the occasion presents itself,
drink, drink of wine in happiness with some fair girl
whose cheeks are tinted with the color of this flower, for
this blue wheel [dome], like a breath of wind, can suddenly
overturn thee.
289...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
When Nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes,
In color black why wrapp'd she beams so bright?
Would she in beamy black, like painter wise,
Frame daintiest lustre, mix'd of shades and light?
Or did she else that sober hue devise,
In object best to knit and strength our sight,
Lest if no veil those brave gleams did disguise,...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Color -- Caste -- Denomination --
These -- are Time's Affair --
Death's diviner Classifying
Does not know they are --
As in sleep -- All Hue forgotten --
Tenets -- put behind --
Death's large -- Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand --
If Circassian -- He is careless --
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde -- or Umber --
Equal Butterfly --
They emerge from His Obscuring --
What...Read more of this...
by
W. E. B. Du Bois
I was a little boy, at home with strangers.
I liked my playmates, and knew well,
Whence all their parents came;
From England, Scotland, royal France
From Germany and oft by chance
The humble Emerald Isle.
But my brown skin and close-curled hair
Was alien, and how it grew, none knew;
Few tried to...Read more of this...
by
Richard Brautigan
Forget love
I want to die
in your yellow hair...Read more of this...
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