Famous Cullen Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To Certain Critics

by Countee Cullen
 Then call me traitor if you must, 
Shout reason and default! 
Say I betray a sacred trust 
Aching beyond this vault. 
I'll bear your censure as your praise, 
For never shall the clan 
Confine my singing to its ways 
Beyond the ways of man. 

No racial option narrows grief, 
Pain is not patriot, 
And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf...Read more of this...

To the Fringed Gentian

by William Cullen Bryant
 Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and com'st alone, 
When woods are bare and...Read more of this...

June

by William Cullen Bryant
I GAZED upon the glorious sky 
And the green mountains round  
And thought that when I came to lie 
At rest within the ground  
'T were pleasant that in flowery June 5 
When brooks send up a cheerful tune  
And groves a joyous sound  
The sexton's hand my grave to make  
The rich green mountain-turf...Read more of this...

November

by William Cullen Bryant
 There is wind where the rose was, 
Cold rain where sweet grass was, 
And clouds like sheep 
Stream o'er the steep 
Grey skies where the lark was. 

Nought warm where your hand was, 
Nought gold where your hair was, 
But phantom, forlorn, 
Beneath the thorn, 
Your ghost where your face was. 

Cold wind where your voice was, 
Tears, tears...Read more of this...

The Wise

by Countee Cullen
 Dead men are wisest, for they know
How far the roots of flowers go,
How long a seed must rot to grow.

Dead men alone bear frost and rain
On throbless heart and heatless brain,
And feel no stir of joy or pain.

Dead men alone are satiate;
They sleep and dream and have no weight,
To curb their rest, of love or hate.

Strange, men should flee...Read more of this...

The Strange Lady

by William Cullen Bryant
 The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by, 
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool dear sky; 
Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound 
An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground. 

A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight; 
Her...Read more of this...

The Shroud of Color

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...

Spring in Town

by William Cullen Bryant
 The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.

Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for...Read more of this...

The Conquerors Grave

by William Cullen Bryant
WITHIN this lowly grave a Conqueror lies  
And yet the monument proclaims it not  
Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
The emblems of a fame that never dies ¡ª 
Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf 5 
Twined with the laurel's fair imperial leaf. 
A simple name alone  
To the great world unknown  
Is...Read more of this...

The West Wind

by William Cullen Bryant
 Beneath the forest's skirts I rest,
Whose branching pines rise dark and high,
And hear the breezes of the West
Among the threaded foliage sigh.

Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of wo?
Is not thy home among the flowers?
Do not the bright June roses blow,
To meet thy kiss at morning hours?

And lo! thy glorious realm outspread--
Yon stretching valleys, green and gay,
And yon free hilltops,...Read more of this...

November

by William Cullen Bryant
 The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky— blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

Oh Mother of a Mighty Race

by William Cullen Bryant
OH mother of a mighty race  
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace! 
The elder dames thy haughty peers  
Admire and hate thy blooming years. 
With words of shame 5 
And taunts of scorn they join thy name. 

For on thy cheeks the glow is spread 
That tints thy morning hills with red; 
Thy step¡ªthe wild deer's rustling feet...Read more of this...

The Gladness of Nature

by William Cullen Bryant
 Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, 
When our mother Nature laughs around; 
When even the deep blue heavens look glad, 
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? 

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky; 
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den, 
And the wilding...Read more of this...

The Constellations

by William Cullen Bryant
 O constellations of the early night, 
That sparkled brighter as the twilight died, 
And made the darkness glorious! I have seen 
Your rays grow dim upon the horizon's edge, 
And sink behind the mountains. I have seen 
The great Orion, with his jewelled belt, 
That large-limbed warrior of the skies, go down 
Into the gloom. Beside him sank a...Read more of this...

Thanatopsis

by William Cullen Bryant
TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty and she glides 5 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When...Read more of this...

The Death of Lincoln

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh, slow to smit and swift to spare, 
Gentle and merciful and just! 
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 
The sword of power, a nation's trust! 

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 
Amid the awe that hushes all, 
And speak the anguish of a land 
That shook with horror at thy fall. 

Thy task is done;...Read more of this...

A Brown Girl Dead

by Countee Cullen
 With two white roses on her breasts, 
White candles at head and feet, 
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests; 
Lord Death has found her sweet.

Her mother pawned her wedding ring
To lay her out in white; 
She'd be so proud she'd dance and sing
to see herself tonight....Read more of this...

The Yellow Violet

by William Cullen Bryant
 When beechen buds begin to swell, 
And woods the blue-bird's warble know, 
The yellow violet's modest bell 
Peeps from last-year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume, 
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, 
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume 
Alone is in the virgin air.

Of all her train, the hands of Spring 
First plant thee in the...Read more of this...

The Living Lost

by William Cullen Bryant
 Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth have passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold...Read more of this...

The Death of the Flowers

by William Cullen Bryant
THE MELANCHOLY days have come the saddest of the year  
Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sere; 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove the autumn leaves lie dead; 
They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread; 
The robin and the wren are flown and from the shrubs the jay 5 
And...Read more of this...

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood

by William Cullen Bryant
 Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs 
No school of long experience, that the world 
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen 
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, 
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood 
And view the haunts of nature. The calm shade 
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the...Read more of this...

From the Dark Tower

by Countee Cullen
 We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made to eternally weep. 
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars is...Read more of this...

After a Tempest

by William Cullen Bryant
 The day had been a day of wind and storm;-- 
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,-- 
And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm 
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. 
I stood upon the upland slope and cast 
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, 
Where the vast plain lay girt by...Read more of this...

Summer Wind

by William Cullen Bryant
 It is a sultry day; the sun has drank 
The dew that lay upon the morning grass, 
There is no rustling in the lofty elm 
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade 
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint 
And interrupted murmur of the bee, 
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again 
Instantly on the wing....Read more of this...

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