Famous Fingers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Poets Voice XV

by Kahlil Gibran
 Part One


The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. 

My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. 

Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct...Read more of this...

I held a jewel in my fingers

by Emily Dickinson
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: " 'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own....Read more of this...

The Cat With Wings

by Robert William Service
 You never saw a cat with wings,
I'll bet a dollar -- well, I did;
'Twas one of those fantastic things
One runs across in old Madrid.
A walloping big tom it was,
(Maybe of the Angora line),
With silken ears and velvet paws,
And silver hair, superbly fine.

It sprawled upon a crimson mat,
Yet though crowds came to gaze on it,
It was a supercilious cat,
And didn't...Read more of this...

Excursion

by D. H. Lawrence
 I wonder, can the night go by; 
Can this shot arrow of travel fly 
Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky 
Of a dawned to-morrow, 
Without ever sleep delivering us
From each other, or loosing the dolorous 
Unfruitful sorrow! 

What is it then that you can see 
That at the window endlessly 
You watch the red sparks whirl and flee
And...Read more of this...

Daybreak In Alabama

by Langston Hughes
 When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long...Read more of this...

The Fingers of the Light

by Emily Dickinson
 The Fingers of the Light
Tapped soft upon the Town
With "I am great and cannot wait
So therefore let me in."

"You're soon," the Town replied,
"My Faces are asleep --
But swear, and I will let you by,
You will not wake them up."

The easy Guest complied
But once within the Town
The transport of His Countenance
Awakened Maid and Man

The Neighbor in the Pool
Upon His Hip...Read more of this...

Sacrifices

by Richard Jones
 All winter the fire devoured everything --
tear-stained elegies, old letters, diaries, dead flowers.
When April finally arrived,
I opened the woodstove one last time
and shoveled the remains of those long cold nights
into a bucket, ash rising
through shafts of sunlight,
as swirling in bright, angelic eddies.
I shoveled out the charred end of an oak log,
black and pointed like a pencil;
half-burnt pages
sacrificed
in the making...Read more of this...

Sweet Stay-at-Home

by William Henry Davies
 Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content, 
Thou knowest of no strange continent; 
Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep 
A gentle motion with the deep; 
Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas, 
Where scent comes forth in every breeze. 
Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow 
For miles, as far as eyes can go: 
Thou hast not seen a summer's...Read more of this...

Mr. Apollinax

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 WHEN Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.
In the palace of Mrs. Phlaccus, at Professor Channing-Cheetah’s
He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.
His laughter was submarine and profound
Like the old man of the sea’s
Hidden under coral islands
Where...Read more of this...

That Day

by Anne Sexton
 This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping...Read more of this...

These potters who constantly plunge their fingers into

by Omar Khayyam
These potters who constantly plunge their fingers into
the clay, who employ all their mind, all their intelligence,
all their faculties to mould it, even to the crushing of
it with their feet and striking with their hands, of what
think they? It is the same clay as the human body that
they are treating thus....Read more of this...

In Charidemum

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 YOU, Charidemus, who my cradle swung,
And watched me all the days that I was young;
You, at whose step the laziest slaves awake,
And both the bailiff and the butler quake;
The barber's suds now blacken with my beard,
And my rough kisses make the maids afeared;
But with reproach your awful eyebrows twitch,
And for the cane, I see, your fingers itch.
If something daintily...Read more of this...

An Opera House

by Amy Lowell
 Within the gold square of the proscenium arch,
A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds,
Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind.
Gold carving edges the balconies,
Rims the boxes,
Runs up and down fluted pillars.
Little knife-stabs of gold
Shine out whenever a box door is opened.
Gold clusters
Flash in soft explosions
On the blue darkness,
Suck back to a point,
And disappear.
Hoops of...Read more of this...

Elizabeth Childers

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Dust of my dust, 
And dust with my dust, 
O, child who died as you entered the world, 
Dead with my death! 
Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard, 
With a heart that beat when you lived with me, 
And stopped when you left me for Life. 
It is well, my child. For you never traveled 
The long,...Read more of this...

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing

by William Butler Yeats
 Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things...Read more of this...

Palm Trees by the Sea

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Second Song: The Girl from Baltistan

                            Throb, throb, throb,
   Far away in the blue transparent Night,
   On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
  ...Read more of this...

Wuthering Heights

by Sylvia Plath
 The horizons ring me like faggots,
Tilted and disparate, and always unstable.
Touched by a match, they might warm me,
And their fine lines singe
The air to orange
Before the distances they pin evaporate,
Weighting the pale sky with a soldier color.
But they only dissolve and dissolve
Like a series of promises, as I step forward.

There is no life higher than the grasstops
Or the hearts...Read more of this...

In The Slight Ripple The Mind Perceives The Heart

by Delmore Schwartz
 In the slight ripple, the fishes dart
Like fingers, centrifugal, like wishes
Wanton. And pleasures rise
 as the eyes fall 
Through the lucid water. The small pebble, 
The clear clay bottom, the white shell
Are apparent, though superficial. 
Who would ask more of the August afternoon? 
Who would dig mines and follow shadows? 
"I would," answers bored Heart, "Lounger, rise"
(Underlip trembling, face...Read more of this...

Pau-Puk-Keewis

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
He, the handsome Yenadizze,
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,
Vexed the village with disturbance;
You shall hear of all his mischief,
And his flight from Hiawatha,
And his wondrous transmigrations,
And the end of his adventures.
On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Stood the lodge of Pau-Puk-Keewis.
It was he who in his frenzy
Whirled these...Read more of this...

Catching the Sunbeams

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Catching the sunbeams, oh, wee dimpled child,
  Gleefully laughing because they are bright;
Knowing, ah! never, my beautiful pet,
  Ne'er can our fingers imprison the light.
Beautiful sunshine, oh! fair is the light
  Falling on earth from the heavens above;
Beautiful childhood, oh! glad is the sight
  Filling the world with its measure of love.
Playing with sunbeams, oh, all...Read more of this...

Fragments

by Alan Seeger
 In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned 
Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, 
I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes 
Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms 
My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced 
In yielding to all amorous influence 
And multiple impulsion of the flesh, 
To feel within my being surge and sway 
The force that...Read more of this...

Besides the Autumn poets sing

by Emily Dickinson
 Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze --

A few incisive Mornings --
A few Ascetic Eves --
Gone -- Mr. Bryant's "Golden Rod" --
And Mr. Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the Brook --
Sealed are the spicy valves --
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The Eyes of many Elves --

Perhaps a squirrel...Read more of this...

The Paradox

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 I am the mother of sorrows, 
I am the ender of grief; 
I am the bud and the blossom, 
I am the late-falling leaf.

I am thy priest and thy poet, 
I am thy serf and thy king; 
I cure the tears of the heartsick, 
When I come near they shall sing.

White are my hands as the snowdrop; 
Swart are...Read more of this...

Through lane it lay -- through bramble

by Emily Dickinson
 Through lane it lay -- through bramble --
Through clearing and through wood --
Banditti often passed us
Upon the lonely road.

The wolf came peering curious --
The owl looked puzzled down --
The serpent's satin figure
Glid stealthily along --

The tempests touched our garments --
The lightning's poinards gleamed --
Fierce from the Crag above us
The hungry Vulture screamed --

The satyr's fingers beckoned --
The valley murmured...Read more of this...

Color -- Caste -- Denomination --

by Emily Dickinson
 Color -- Caste -- Denomination --
These -- are Time's Affair --
Death's diviner Classifying
Does not know they are --

As in sleep -- All Hue forgotten --
Tenets -- put behind --
Death's large -- Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand --

If Circassian -- He is careless --
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde -- or Umber --
Equal Butterfly --

They emerge from His Obscuring --
What...Read more of this...

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