Famous Eye Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Eye poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous eye poems. These examples illustrate what a famous eye poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
I've seen a Dying Eye
Run round and round a Room --
In search of Something -- as it seemed --
Then Cloudier become --
And then -- obscure with Fog --
And then -- be soldered down
Without disclosing what it be
'Twere blessed to have seen --...Read more of this...
by
Eliza Cook
THE ORB I like is not the one
That dazzles with its lightning gleam;
That dares to look upon the sun,
As though it challenged brighter beam.
That orb may sparkle, flash, and roll;
Its fire may blaze, its shaft may fly;
But not for me: I prize the soul
That slumbers in a quiet eye.
There ’s something...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch;
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
O POVERTY! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mein, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow, that hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
Thy rugged paths with pleasure I attend; --
For Fancy, that with fairest dreams can bless;
And Patience, in the Pall of Wretchedness,
Sad-smiling, as the ruthless storms descend;...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And stedfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look would say,
"We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for my self mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
If by chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,
Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
When your sickness is your...Read more of this...
by
Dejan Stojanovic
Singers pass but a song lives
Feeding the eternal flame
New minds, burning
Eyes, eager to hear, inflaming
Beauty, recognizing the spark
Shyly from afar seducing
Beauty, feeding the flame
Eyes feeding the beauty
The source of fire—an omnipotent eye
Hearing with eyes, seeing with ears ...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
The small dogs look at the big dogs;
They observe unwieldy dimensions
And curious imperfections of odor.
Here is the formal male group:
The young men look upon their seniors,
They consider the elderly mind
And observe its inexplicable correlations.
Said Tsin-Tsu:
It is only in small dogs and the young
That we find minute observation...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
As willing lid o'er weary eye
The Evening on the Day leans
Till of all our nature's House
Remains but Balcony...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
With eye and with gesture
You say you are holy.
I say you lie;
For I did see you
Draw away your coats
From the sin upon the hands
Of a little child.
Liar!...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Lesbia hath a beaming eye,
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
My Nora's lid that seldom rises;
Few its looks, but every one,
Like unexpected light, surprises!
Oh, my Nora Creina, dear,
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina,
Beauty...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see --
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way --
But were it told to me -- Today --
That I might have the sky
For mine -- I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me --
The Meadows -- mine --
The Mountains -- mine --
All Forests...Read more of this...
by
William Matthews
Most of the time he worked, a sort of sleep
with a purpose, so far as I could tell.
How he got from the dark of sleep
to the dark of waking up I'll never know;
the lax sprawl sleep allowed him
began to set from the edges in,
like a custard, and then he was awake,
me too, of course, wriggling my ears
while he unlocked...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
His Bill is clasped -- his Eye forsook --
His Feathers wilted low --
The Claws that clung, like lifeless Gloves
Indifferent hanging now --
The Joy that in his happy Throat
Was waiting to be poured
Gored through and through with Death, to be
Assassin of a Bird
Resembles to my outraged mind
The firing in Heaven,
On Angels -- squandering for you
Their Miracles of Tune --...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other,
When that mine eye is famished for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
I struggled through streets of
Bricked-up, boarded-up houses,
Mostly burned-out, keeping
To the middle of the road,
Watching the abandoned gardens
With here and there a house
Still lived in, curtained
Against the daylight and distantly
I saw the iron railings of the school
I’d taught in thirty years before.
The same brick buildings, hop scotch
Squares and rounders posts
And the sign, ‘Welcome to Wyther Park
Primary School’. The wooden prefabs
Where...Read more of this...
by
Robert Lowell
My whole eye was sunset red,
the old cut cornea throbbed,
I saw things darkly,
as through an unwashed goldfish globe.
I lay all day on my bed.
I chain-smoked through the night,
learning to flinch
at the flash of the matchlight.
Outside, the summer rain,
a simmer of rot and renewal,
fell in pinpricks.
Even new life is fuel.
My eyes throb.
Nothing can dislodge
the house with my first tooth
noosed in a...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Utt'ring bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
It comes oozing
out of flowers at night,
it comes out of the rain
if a snake looks skyward,
it comes out of chairs and tables
if you don't point at them and say their names.
It comes into your mouth while you sleep,
pressing in like a washcloth.
Beware. Beware.
If you meet a cross-eyed person
you must plunge into the grass,
alongside the chilly ants,
fish through the green...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
O, Poverty! though from thy haggard eye,
Thy cheerless mien, of every charm bereft,
Thy brow that Hope's last traces long have left,
Vain Fortune's feeble sons with terror fly;
I love thy solitary haunts to seek.
For Pity, reckless of her own distress;
And Patience, in her pall of wretchedness,
That turns to the bleak storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, that never told her wrong;
And...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Come, my little one, with me!
There are wondrous sights to see
As the evening shadows fall;
In your pretty cap and gown,
Don't detain
The Shut-Eye train -
"Ting-a-ling!" the bell it goeth,
"Toot-toot!" the whistle bloweth,
And we hear the warning call:
"All aboard for Shut-Eye Town!"
Over hill and over plain
Soon will speed the Shut-Eye train!
Through the blue where bloom the stars
And the Mother Moon looks...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
The Lives and Times of John Keats,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron
Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Keepe on your maske, and hide your eye,
For with beholding you I dye:
Your fatall beauty, Gorgon-like,
Dead with astonishment will strike;
Your piercing eyes if them I see
Are worse than basilisks to mee.
Shutt from mine eyes those hills of snowe,
Their melting valleys doe not showe;
Their azure paths lead to dispaire,
O vex me not, forbeare, forbeare;
For while I thus in torments dwell
The...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THE FINE cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt,
Something Sinbad, the sailor, took away from robbers,
Something a traveler with plenty of money might pick up
And bring home and stick on the walls and say:
“There’s a little thing made a hit with me
When I was in Cairo—I think I must see Cairo again some day.”
So there are...Read more of this...
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