Famous Fallow Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean

by Robinson Jeffers
 Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening
The stars go over the lonely ocean,
And a black-maned wild boar
Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,
Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.
The best nation in Europe has fallen,
And that...Read more of this...

On a Picture Painted by her self representing two Nimphs of DIANAs one in a posture to Hunt the other Batheing

by Anne Killigrew
 WE are Diana's Virgin-Train, 
Descended of no Mortal Strain; 
Our Bows and Arrows are our Goods, 
Our Pallaces, the lofty Woods, 
The Hills and Dales, at early Morn, 
Resound and Eccho with our Horn; 
We chase the Hinde and Fallow-Deer, 
The Wolf and Boar both dread our Spear; 

In Swiftness we out-strip the Wind, 
An Eye and Thought we...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Wooing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 "As unto the bow the cord is, 
So unto the man is woman; 
Though she bends him, she obeys him, 
Though she draws him, yet she follows; 
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha 
Said within himself and pondered, 
Much perplexed by various feelings, 
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
In...Read more of this...

All All And All The Dry Worlds Lever

by Dylan Thomas
 I

All all and all the dry worlds lever,
Stage of the ice, the solid ocean,
All from the oil, the pound of lava.
City of spring, the governed flower,
Turns in the earth that turns the ashen
Towns around on a wheel of fire.

How now my flesh, my naked fellow,
Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow,
Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow.
All all...Read more of this...

Morning

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 O'ER fallow plains and fertile meads,
AURORA lifts the torch of day;
The shad'wy brow of Night recedes,
Cold dew-drops fall from every spray;
Now o'er the thistle's rugged head,
Thin veils of filmy vapour fly,
On ev'ry violet's perfum'd bed
The sparkling gems of Nature lie. 

The hill's tall brow is crown'd with gold,
The Milk-maid trills her jocund lay,
The Shepherd-boy unpens his fold,
The Lambs along...Read more of this...

Forget

by Czeslaw Milosz
 Forget the suffering
You caused others.
Forget the suffering
Others caused you.
The waters run and run,
Springs sparkle and are done,
You walk the earth you are forgetting.

Sometimes you hear a distant refrain.
What does it mean, you ask, who is singing?
A childlike sun grows warm.
A grandson and a great-grandson are born.
You are led by the hand once again.

The names of the rivers remain with...Read more of this...

Audley Court

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 ‘The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.’

I spoke, while Audley feast

Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. ‘With all my heart,’
Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’ the swarm,
And...Read more of this...

The Brook

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I come from haunts of coot and hern, 
I make a sudden sally 
And sparkle out among the fern, 
To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down, 
Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorpes, a little town, 
And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
To join the brimming river, 
For...Read more of this...

The Ruins Of Time

by Robert Lowell
 (Quevedo, Mire los muros de la partia mia and
Buscas en Roma a Roma, (!)O peregrino!)

I

I saw the musty shingles of my house,
raw wood and fixed once, now a wash of moss
eroded by the ruin of age
furning all fair and green things into waste.
I climbed the pasture. I saw the dim sun drink
the ice just thawing from the boldered fallow,
woods...Read more of this...

The Bat is dun with wrinkled Wings --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings --
Like fallow Article --
And not a song pervade his Lips --
Or none perceptible.

His small Umbrella quaintly halved
Describing in the Air
An Arc alike inscrutable
Elate Philosopher.

Deputed from what Firmament --
Of what Astute Abode --
Empowered with what Malignity
Auspiciously withheld --

To his adroit Creator
Acribe no less the praise --
Beneficent, believe me,
His Eccentricities --...Read more of this...

Poem For South African Women

by June Jordan
Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the...Read more of this...

Battle Of Brunanburgh

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the lindenwood,
Hack'd the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands. 

Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes. 

Bow'd the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,
Fell...Read more of this...

Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things—
   For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original,...Read more of this...

The Fallow Deer At The Lonely House

by Thomas Hardy
 One without looks in tonight
Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white;
One without looks in tonight
As we sit and think 
By the fender-brink.

We do not discern those eyes
Watching in the snow;
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
Wandering, aglow
Four-footed, tiptoe....Read more of this...

Song of the Redwood-Tree

by Walt Whitman
 1
A CALIFORNIA song! 
A prophecy and indirection—a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air; 
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing—or hamadryads departing; 
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, 
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.

Farewell, my brethren, 
Farewell, O earth and sky—farewell, ye neighboring waters; 
My time has ended, my term...Read more of this...

The Song of Hiawatha: X

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 X. Hiawatha's Wooing

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!"

Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In the land of the Dacotahs.

"Wed a maiden of...Read more of this...

97. To John Kennedy Dumfries House

by Robert Burns
 NOW, Kennedy, if foot or horse
E’er bring you in by Mauchlin corse,
(Lord, man, there’s lasses there wad force
 A hermit’s fancy;
An’ down the gate in faith they’re worse,
 An’ mair unchancy).


But as I’m sayin, please step to Dow’s,
An’ taste sic gear as Johnie brews,
Till some bit callan bring me news
 That ye are there;
An’ if we dinna hae a...Read more of this...

Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels

by Ellis Parker Butler
 (with apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper)

I well recall (and who does not)
The circus bill-board hippopotamus,
whose wide distended jaws
For fear and terror were good cause.

That month, that vasty carmine cave,
Could munch with ease a Nubian slave;
In fact, the bill-board hippopot-
amus could bolt a house and lot!

Wide opened, that tremendous mouth
Obscured three-quarters of the south
Side of Schmidt’s barn, and promised me
Thrills,...Read more of this...

Demeter And Persephone

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
Falls on the threshold of her native land,
And can no more, thou camest, O my child,
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,
Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb,
With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
When...Read more of this...

Requiescam

by Barry Tebb
 (May I lie in peace)



Let there be grass and trees to blow

And fold me in their shadow

Branches to shake and leaves

Turn brown, fall and lie fallow.

Let there be moorlands swept by wind

And raked by rain, purple splashes of heather

In autumn and sturdy boulders our forefathers

Carved their names on, emerald and slippery with moss

And pebble-strewn sheep-tracks crossing ditch and dyke

Where...Read more of this...

Winter in Durnover Field

by Thomas Hardy
 Scene.--A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and 
frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, 
and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a 
dull grey. 

(Triolet) 

Rook.--Throughout the field I find no grain; 
 The cruel frost encrusts the cornland! 
Starling.--Aye: patient pecking now is vain 
 Throughout the field,...Read more of this...

Barclay Of Ury

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury's gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets...Read more of this...

The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down 
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun 
Had swarthed about with lion-brown 
Before the Spring was done. 

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,
With hempen strands in spray— 
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks, 
Swung down at a disarray. 

Or like a juicy and jostling shock 
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock...Read more of this...

The Sower

by William Cowper
 (Matthew, xiii.3)

Ye sons of earth prepare the plough,
Break up your fallow ground;
The sower is gone forth to sow,
And scatter blessings round.

The seed that finds a stony soil
Shoots forth a hasty blade;
But ill repays the sower's toil,
Soon wither'd, scorch'd, and dead.

The thorny ground is sure to balk
All hopes of harvest there;
We find a tall and sickly stalk,
But not the fruitful...Read more of this...

62. Epistle to William Simson

by Robert Burns
 I GAT your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly,
 And unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin billie
 Your flatterin strain.


But I’se believe ye kindly meant it:
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
 On my poor Musie;
Tho’ in sic phraisin terms ye’ve penn’d it,
 I scarce...Read more of this...

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