Famous Dazzling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Medusa

by Louise Bogan
 Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea's incoherences,
You house your unnerving head -- God-ball,
Lens of mercies,
Your stooges
Plying their wild cells in my keel's shadow,
Pushing by like hearts,
Red stigmata at the very center,
Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of
departure,

Dragging their Jesus hair.
Did I escape, I wonder?
My mind winds to you
Old barnacled umbilicus,...Read more of this...

The Choral Union

by Siegfried Sassoon
 He staggered in from night and frost and fog 
And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog 
And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came 
To hear—he couldn’t call to mind the name— 
But he’d been given a ticket for the show,
And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go. 

The hall swam in his eyes, and...Read more of this...

To an Early Daffodil

by Amy Lowell
 Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring!
Thou herald of rich Summer's myriad flowers!
The climbing sun with new recovered powers
Does warm thee into being, through the ring
Of rich, brown earth he woos thee, makes thee fling
Thy green shoots up, inheriting the dowers
Of bending sky and sudden, sweeping showers,
Till ripe and blossoming thou art a thing
To make all nature glad, thou art...Read more of this...

Parables And Riddles

by Friedrich von Schiller
 I.

A bridge of pearls its form uprears
High o'er a gray and misty sea;
E'en in a moment it appears,
And rises upwards giddily.

Beneath its arch can find a road
The loftiest vessel's mast most high,
Itself hath never borne a load,
And seems, when thou draw'st near, to fly.

It comes first with the stream, and goes
Soon as the watery flood is dried.
Where may be...Read more of this...

The Great Grey Plain

by Henry Lawson
 Out West, where the stars are brightest, 
Where the scorching north wind blows, 
And the bones of the dead gleam whitest, 
And the sun on a desert glows -- 
Yet within the selfish kingdom 
Where man starves man for gain, 
Where white men tramp for existence -- 
Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. 

No break in its awful horizon,...Read more of this...

My Butterfly

by Robert Frost
 Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Saave only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago--
It seems forever--
Since...Read more of this...

One of the ones that Midas touched

by Emily Dickinson
 One of the ones that Midas touched
Who failed to touch us all
Was that confiding Prodigal
The reeling Oriole --

So drunk he disavows it
With badinage divine --
So dazzling we mistake him
For an alighting Mine --

A Pleader -- a Dissembler --
An Epicure -- a Thief --
Betimes an Oratorio --
An Ecstasy in chief --

The Jesuit of Orchards
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entire...Read more of this...

The Spirit of the Gay

by George William Russell
 WITH the glamour of the Gay
How you made our hearts to flame;
Gave each life some airy aim:
Ever round you seemed to play
Sunlight from some inner day.


Dazzling as with red and gold;
Rich with beauty, love and youth—
How were we to know the truth,
That if all the tale were told
Life for you was sad and cold?


For you found if we would...Read more of this...

My Napoleon

by Victor Hugo
 ("Toujours lui! lui partout!") 
 
 {XL., December, 1828.} 


 Above all others, everywhere I see 
 His image cold or burning! 
 My brain it thrills, and oftentime sets free 
 The thoughts within me yearning. 
 My quivering lips pour forth the words 
 That cluster in his name of glory— 
 The star gigantic with its...Read more of this...

Ode To The Onion

by Pablo Neruda
 Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear...Read more of this...

The Memory of Earth

by George William Russell
 IN the wet dusk silver sweet,
Down the violet scented ways,
As I moved with quiet feet
I was met by mighty days.


On the hedge the hanging dew
Glassed the eve and stars and skies;
While I gazed a madness grew
Into thundered battle cries.


Where the hawthorn glimmered white,
Flashed the spear and fell the stroke—
Ah, what faces pale and bright
Where the dazzling battle broke!


There a...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls up sombre terraces

by Conrad Aiken
 Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.

They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and...Read more of this...

Archaic Bust Of Apollo

by Delmore Schwartz
 (After Rilke)


We cannot know the indescribable face
Where the eyes like apples ripened. Even so,
His torso has a candelabra's glow,
His gaze, contained as in a mirror's grace,

Shines within it. Otherwise his breast
Would not be dazzling. Nor would you recognize
The smile that moves along his curving thighs,
There where love's strength is caught within its nest.

This stone would not be broken, but...Read more of this...

The Falconer of God

by William Rose Benet
 I flung my soul to the air like a falcon flying. 
I said, "Wait on, wait on, while I ride below! 
 I shall start a heron soon 
 In the marsh beneath the moon -- 
A strange white heron rising with silver on its wings, 
 Rising and crying 
 Wordless, wondrous things; 
The secret of the stars,...Read more of this...

Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling

by Walt Whitman
 THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! 
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand, 
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam, 
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue; 
O sun of noon rufulgent! my special word to thee.

Hear me illustrious! 
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee, 
Even as basking babe, then...Read more of this...

Summer in the South

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 The Oriole sings in the greening grove 
As if he were half-way waiting, 
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green, 
Timid, and hesitating. 
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep 
And the nights smell warm and pinety, 
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots 
Are yellow-green and tiny. 
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Gum-Boot Ben

by Robert William Service
 He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim.
 He asked me for a grubstake, and the same I gave to him.
 He hinted of a hidden trove, and when I made so bold
 To question his veracity, this is the tale he told.

"I do not seek the copper streak, nor yet the yellow dust;
I am not...Read more of this...

Monody to the Memory of Chatterton

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Chill penury repress'd his noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY. 


IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven, 
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven ! 
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way 
To the bland regions of celestial day; 
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air 
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme...Read more of this...

Year of Meteors 1859 '60

by Walt Whitman
 YEAR of meteors! brooding year! 
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs; 
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad; 
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia; 
(I was at hand—silent I stood, with teeth shut close—I watch’d;
I stood very near you, old man,...Read more of this...

Stars

by Emily Brontë
 Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky? 

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine. 

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on...Read more of this...

The Scribes Prayer

by Robert William Service
 When from my fumbling hand the tired pen falls,
And in the twilight weary droops my head;
While to my quiet heart a still voice calls,
Calls me to join my kindred of the Dead:
Grant that I may, O Lord, ere rest be mine,
Write to Thy praise one radiant, ringing line.

For all of worth that in this clay abides,
The leaping rapture and...Read more of this...

Love And Marilyn Monroe

by Delmore Schwartz
 (after Spillane)


Let us be aware of the true dark gods
Acknowledgeing the cache of the crotch
The primitive pure and pwerful pink and grey
 private sensitivites
Wincing, marvelous in their sweetness, whence rises
 the future.

Therefore let us praise Miss Marilyn Monroe.
She has a noble attitude marked by pride and candor
She takes a noble pride in the female nature and torso
She articualtes her...Read more of this...

The Maid Of The Mills Treachery

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [This Ballad is introduced in the Wanderjahre, 
in a tale called The Foolish Pilgrim.]

WHENCE comes our friend so hastily,

When scarce the Eastern sky is grey?
Hath he just ceased, though cold it be,

In yonder holy spot to pray?
The brook appears to hem his path,

Would he barefooted o'er it go?
Why curse his orisons in wrath,

Across those heights beclad with snow?

Alas! his...Read more of this...

Lament For Ignacio Sanchez Mejias

by Federico García Lorca
 1. Cogida and death 

At five in the afternoon. 
It was exactly five in the afternoon. 
A boy brought the white sheet 
at five in the afternoon. 
A frail of lime ready prepared 
at five in the afternoon. 
The rest was death, and death alone. 

The wind carried away the cottonwool 
at five in the afternoon. 
And the oxide...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...

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