Famous Dwell Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

To Simplicity

by Mary Darby Robinson
 [Inscribed to Lady Duncannon.]


SWEET blushing Nymph, who loves to dwell
In the dark forest's silent gloom;
Who smiles within the Hermit's cell,
And sighs upon the rustic's tomb;
Who, pitying, sees the busy throng,
The slaves of fashion's giddy sway;
Who in a wild and artless song,
Warbles the feath'ry hours away. 

Oft have I flown thy steps to trace,
In the low valley's still retreat,
Oft have...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXIV

by William Shakespeare
 Who is it that says most? which can say more
Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his...Read more of this...

O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell

by John Keats
 O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,— 
Nature's observatory—whence the dell,
In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these...Read more of this...

To Lovers

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Ho, ye lovers, list to me;
 Warning words have I for thee:
 Give ye heed, hefore ye wed,
 To this thing Sir Chaucer said:

“Love wol not be constrained by maistrie,
When maistrie cometh, the god of love anon
Beteth his winges, and farewel, he is gon.”

 Other poets knew as well,
 And the same sad story tell,
 Hark ye, heed ye,...Read more of this...

Apology

by Amy Lowell
 Be not angry with me that I bear
Your colours everywhere,
All through each crowded street,
And meet
The wonder-light in every eye,
As I go by.
Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,
Blinded by rainbow haze,
The stuff of happiness,
No less,
Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds
Of peacock golds.
Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way
Flushes beneath its gray.
My steps fall ringed with light,
So bright,
It seems...Read more of this...

While Moon and Venus in the sky shall dwell,

by Omar Khayyam
While Moon and Venus in the sky shall dwell,
None shall see aught red grape-juice to excel:
O foolish publicans, what can you buy
One half so precious as the goods you sell?...Read more of this...

351. Second Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?


 Thou, Nature! partial...Read more of this...

The stars, who dwell on heaven's exalted stage,

by Omar Khayyam
The stars, who dwell on heaven's exalted stage,
Baffle the wise diviners of our age;
Take heed, hold fast the rope of mother wit.
These augurs all distrust their own presage....Read more of this...

To Mrs. Macmarland

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 IN Schnee der Alpen - so it runs
To those divine accords - and here
We dwell in Alpine snows and suns,
A motley crew, for half the year:
A motley crew, we dwell to taste -
A shivering band in hope and fear -
That sun upon the snowy waste,
That Alpine ether cold and clear.

Up from the laboured plains, and up
From low sea-levels, we...Read more of this...

The Wanderer

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Published in the Gottingen Musen Almanach, 
having been written "to express his feelings and caprices" after 
his separation from Frederica.]

WANDERER.

YOUNG woman, may God bless thee,
Thee, and the sucking infant
Upon thy breast!
Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall,
Neath the elm-tree's shadow,
Lay aside my burden,
Near thee take my rest.

WOMAN.

What vocation leads thee,
While the day is burning,
Up this dusty path?
Bring'st thou goods from...Read more of this...

The Dark Forest

by Edward Thomas
 Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead
Hang stars like seeds of light
In vain, though not since they were sown was bred
Anything more bright.

And evermore mighty multitudes ride
About, nor enter in;
Of the other multitudes that dwell inside
Never yet was one seen.

The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite
Outside is gold and white,
Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet
The others,...Read more of this...

In Paradise, they tell us, Houris dwell,

by Omar Khayyam
In Paradise, they tell us, Houris dwell,
And fountains run with wine and oxymel:
If these be lawful in the world to come,
Surely 'tis right to love them here as well....Read more of this...

68. The Holy Fair

by Robert Burns
 UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
 When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
 An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
 Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
 The lav’rocks they were chantin
 Fu’ sweet that day.


As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
 To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early...Read more of this...

Psalm 68 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-6,32-35 
L. M.
The vengeance and compassion of God.

Let God arise in all his might,
And put the troops of hell to flight,
As smoke that sought to cloud the skies
Before the rising tempest flies.

[He comes arrayed in burning flames
Justice and Vengeance are his names:
Behold his fainting foes expire,
Like melting wax before the fire.]

He rides and thunders through the sky;
His name, Jehovah,...Read more of this...

Waring

by Robert Browning
 I

What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London-town?

Who'd have guessed it from his lip,
Or his brow's accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship,
Or started landward?—little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together,
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home through...Read more of this...

Death

by John Donne
DEATH be not proud though some have call¨¨d thee 
Mighty and dreadful for thou art not so: 
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 
Die not poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. 
From Rest and Sleep which but thy picture be 5 
Much pleasure then from thee much more must flow; 
And soonest our best men with...Read more of this...

Tranquillity

by Robert William Service
 Oh if it were not for my wife
 And family increase,
How gladly would I close my life
 In monastery peace!
A sweet and scented isle I know
 Where monks in muteness dwell,
And there in sereness I would go
 And seek a cell.

On milk and oaten meal I'd live,
 With carrot, kail and cheese;
The greens that tiny gardens give,
 The bounty...Read more of this...

Hymn 87

by Isaac Watts
 God dwells with the humble and penitent.

Isa. 47:15,16. 

Thus saith the high and lofty One:
"I sit upon my holy throne;
My name is God, I dwell on high,
Dwell in my own eternity.

"But I descend to worlds below,
On earth I have a mansion too;
The humble spirit and contrite
Is an abode of my delight.

"The humble soul my words revive,
I bid the mourning...Read more of this...

The Sea

by Lewis Carroll
 There are certain things -a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three - 
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the SEA.

Pour some salt water over the floor - 
Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That's very like the SEA.

Beat a dog...Read more of this...

Could that sweet Darkness where they dwell

by Emily Dickinson
 Could that sweet Darkness where they dwell
Be once disclosed to us
The clamor for their loveliness
Would burst the Loneliness --...Read more of this...

Best Things dwell out of Sight

by Emily Dickinson
 Best Things dwell out of Sight
The Pearl -- the Just -- Our Thought.

Most shun the Public Air
Legitimate, and Rare --

The Capsule of the Wind
The Capsule of the Mind

Exhibit here, as doth a Burr --
Germ's Germ be where?...Read more of this...

Elegy XVIII: Loves Progress

by John Donne
 Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster that were grown
Faced like a...Read more of this...

I dwell in Possibility --

by Emily Dickinson
 I dwell in Possibility --
A fairer House than Prose --
More numerous of Windows --
Superior -- for Doors --

Of Chambers as the Cedars --
Impregnable of Eye --
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky --

Of Visitors -- the fairest --
For Occupation -- This --
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise --...Read more of this...

Psalm 14 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 The folly of persecutors.

Are sinners now so senseless grown
That they the saints devour?
And never worship at thy throne,
Nor fear thine awful power?

Great God! appear to their surprise;
Reveal thy dreadful name;
Let them no more thy wrath despise,
Nor turn our hope to shame.

Dost thou not dwell among the just?
And yet our foes deride,
That we should make thy name our trust;
Great God!...Read more of this...

Athanasia

by Oscar Wilde
 To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

But when they had unloosed the linen band
Which swathed the Egyptian's body,...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Dwell poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace