Famous Constellation Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Constellation poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous constellation poems. These examples illustrate what a famous constellation poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Burns, Robert
...wes, or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?—
O had I power like inclination,
I’d heeze thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship’s face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He’d ne’er cast saut upo’ thy tail.—
Wi’ a’ this care and a’ this grief,
And sma’, sma’ prospect of rel...Read more of this...
by
Crashaw, Richard
...br>
All thy good works which went before,
And waited for thee at the door,
Shall own thee there; and all in one
Weave a constellation
Of crowns, with which the King, thy spouse,
Shall build up thy triumphant brows.
All thy old woes shall now smile on thee,
And thy pains sit bright upon thee:
All thy sorrows here shall shine,
And thy sufferings be divine.
Tears shall take comfort, and turn gems,
And wrongs repent to diadems.
Even thy deaths shall live, and new
Dres...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...down to rest --
Nor noticed that the Ebbing Day
Flowed silver to the West --
Nor noticed Night did soft descend --
Nor Constellation burn --
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.
The angels -- happening that way
This dusty heart espied --
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God --
There -- sandals for the Barefoot --
There -- gathered from the gales --
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering Sails....Read more of this...
by
Doty, Mark
...t
--maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit--
one saxophone blew, and a sheer black scrim
billowed over some minor constellation
under repair. Then, on Broadway, red wings
in a storefront tableau, lustrous, the live macaws
preening, beaks opening and closing
like those animated knives that unfold all night
in jewelers' windows. For sale,
glass eyes turned outward toward the rain,
the birds lined up like the endless flowers
and cheap gems, the makeshift tables
...Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...eginnniing
had been prepared to serve a pure event.
Who shows a child just as it stands? Who places him
within his constellation, with the measuring-rod
of distance in his hand. Who makes his death
from gray bread that grows hard, -or leaves
it there inside his rounded mouth, jagged as the core
of a sweet apple?.......The minds of murderers
are easily comprehended. But this: to contain death,
the whole of death, even before life has be...Read more of this...
by
Rilke, Rainer Maria
...ew ones. Stars
of the land of pain. Slowly she names them:
"There, look: the Rider ,the Staff,and that
crowded constellation they call the the Garland of Fruit.
Then farther up toward the Pole:
Cradle, Way, the Burning Book, Doll, Window.
And in the Southern sky, pure as lines
on the palm of a blessed hand, the clear sparkling M,
standing for Mothers....."
Yet the dead youth must go on alone.
In silence the elder Lament brings him
as ...Read more of this...
by
Storni, Alfonsina
...and the down quilt of weeded moss.
I am going to sleep, my nurse, put me to bed.
Set a lamp at my headboard;
a constellation; whatever you like;
all are good: lower it a bit.
Leave me alone: you hear the buds breaking through . . .
a celestial foot rocks you from above
and a bird traces a pattern for you
so you'll forget . . . Thank you. Oh, one request:
if he telephones again
tell him not to keep trying for I have left . . ....Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...uids from assorted pots,
Pitchers and Coronation goblets
Like Monday drunkards. The milky berries
Bow down, a local constellation,
Toward their admirers in the tabletop:
Mobs of eyeballs looking up.
Are those petals of leaves you've paried with them ---
Those green-striped ovals of silver tissue?
The red geraniums I know.
Friends, friends. They stink of armpits
And the invovled maladies of autumn,
Musky as a lovebed the morning after.
My nostrils prickle w...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...likens, in his Ilias,
To dogstar bright the fierce Achilles;
But ne'er beheld in red procession
Three dogstars rise in constellation,
Nor saw, in glooms of evening misty,
Such signs of fiery triplicity,
Which, far beyond the comet's tail,
Portend destruction where they sail.
Oh, had Great-Britain's warlike shore
Produced but ten such heroes more,
They'd spared the pains, and held the station
Of this world's final conflagration;
Which when its time comes, at a stand,
Woul...Read more of this...
by
Sutphen, Joyce
...one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.
Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light....Read more of this...
by
Neruda, Pablo
...Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.
You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...ong the pavement,
Palpitating flames of life,
People flicker round me,
I forget my bereavement,
The gap in the great constellation,
The place where a star used to be.
Nay, though the pole-star
Is blown out like a candle,
And all the heavens are wandering in disarray,
Yet when pleiads of people are
Deployed around me, and I see
The street’s long outstretched Milky Way,
When people flicker down the pavement,
I forget my bereavement....Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...mprisonment
Fortune hath giv'n us this adversity'.
Some wick'* aspect or disposition *wicked
Of Saturn, by some constellation,
Hath giv'n us this, although we had it sworn,
So stood the heaven when that we were born,
We must endure; this is the short and plain.
This Palamon answer'd, and said again:
"Cousin, forsooth of this opinion
Thou hast a vain imagination.
This prison caused me not for to cry;
But I was hurt right now thorough mine eye
Into mine heart; ...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...of the snare.
There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign,
By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and Earth
With constellation and with continent,
Above an entry: riding in, we called;
A plump-armed Ostleress and a stable wench
Came running at the call, and helped us down.
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed,
Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave
Upon a pillared porch, the bases lost
In laurel: her we asked of that and this,
And who were tuto...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...e.
HE.
Not now for the first time I surrender
To this form, in humble adoration;
It was brightest midst the constellation
In the hail adorn'd with festal splendour.
SHE.
Be thou joyful that 'tis in my power
To complete thy strange and merry story!
Silks behind her, full of purple glory,
Floated, when thou saw'st her in that hour.
HE.
No, in truth, thou hast not sung it rightly!
Spirits may have told thee all about it;
Pearls and gems they s...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...s Taure,* and Mars therein: *Taurus
Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!
I follow'd aye mine inclination
By virtue of my constellation:
That made me that I coulde not withdraw
My chamber of Venus from a good fellaw.
[Yet have I Marte's mark upon my face,
And also in another privy place.
For God so wisly* be my salvation, *certainly
I loved never by discretion,
But ever follow'd mine own appetite,
All* were he short, or long, or black, or white, *whether
I took no keep,...Read more of this...
by
Jonson, Ben
...Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our James ! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there ! Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage, Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/finial.gif">Source: Jonson, Ben.<...Read more of this...
by
Jonson, Ben
...the banks of Thames,
That did so take Eliza and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there:
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light....Read more of this...
by
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...!
Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation,
Pride of her children, and honored afar,
Let the wide beams of thy full constellation
Scatter each cloud that would darken a star!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry,
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!
Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee,
Bearing the standard of Liberty's van?
Think not the G...Read more of this...
by
Popa, Vasko
...Each strips his own skin
Each bares his own constellation
Which has never seen the night
Each fills his skin with rocks
And plays with it
Lit by his own stars
Who doesn't stop till dawn
Who doesn't bat an eyelid or fall
Earns his own skin
(This game is rarely played)...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Constellation poems.