Famous Firefly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Camomile Tea

...nd sipping a cup of camomile tea. 

Light as feathers the witches fly, 
The horn of the moon is plain to see; 
By a firefly under a jonquil flower 
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee. 

We might be fifty, we might be five, 
So snug, so compact, so wise are we! 
Under the kitchen-table leg 
My knee is pressing against his knee. 

Our shutters are shut, the fire is low, 
The tap is dripping peacefully; 
The saucepan shadows on the wall 
Are black and round and plain to...Read more of this...
by Mansfield, Katherine


Gregory Corso

...s
 Battle forth your spangled hyena finger stumps
 along the brink of Paradise
 O Bomb O final Pied Piper
 both sun and firefly behind your shock waltz
 God abandoned mock-nude
 beneath His thin false-talc's apocalypse
 He cannot hear thy flute's
 happy-the-day profanations
 He is spilled deaf into the Silencer's warty ear
 His Kingdom an eternity of crude wax
 Clogged clarions untrumpet Him
 Sealed angels unsing Him
 A thunderless God A dead God
 O Bomb thy BOOM His tomb
 Th...Read more of this...
by Corso, Gregory

Improvisations: Light And Snow

...es have we been interrupted 
Just as I was about to make up a story for you! 
One time it was because we suddenly saw a firefly 
Lighting his green lantern among the boughs of a fir-tree. 
Marvellous! Marvellous! He is making for himself 
A little tent of light in the darkness! 
And one time it was because we saw a lilac lightning flash 
Run wrinkling into the blue top of the mountain,—
We heard boulders of thunder rolling down upon us 
And the plat-plat of drops on the windo...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

Memoranda

...ul of grass, brown, says little. This quarter mile field of it, waving seeds ripening in the sun, is a lake of luminous firefly lavender.

Prairie roses, two of them, climb down the sides of a road ditch. In the clear pool they find their faces along stiff knives of grass, and cat-tails who speak and keep thoughts in beaver brown.

These gardens empty; these fields only flower ghosts; these yards with faces gone; leaves speaking as feet and skirts in slow dances to slow winds...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

...rimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font;
The firefly wakens, waken thou with me. 

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts, in me. 

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the b...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord


Pauls Wife

...y.
Of course the bottle fell short by a mile,
But the shout reached the girl and put her light out.
She went out like a firefly, and that was all.

 So there were witnesses that Paul was married
And not to anyone to be ashamed of
Everyone had been wrong in judging Paul.
Murphy told me Paul put on all those airs
About his wife to keep her to himself.
Paul was what's called a terrible possessor.
Owning a wife with him meant owning her.
She wasn't anybody else's business,
Either...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Pleasure XXIV

...

But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit? 

Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? 

And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind? 

Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff? 

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. 

Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow? 

Even your body knows its heritage and its...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

Silent Poem

...l buttercup
whetstone thunderstorm pitchfork steeplebush 

gristmill millstone cornmeal waterwheel
watercress buckwheat firefly jewelweed 

gravestone groundpine windbreak bedrock
weathercock snowfall starlight cockcrow...Read more of this...
by Francis, Robert

Summer Night

...petal, now the white; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: 
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. 

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, 5 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

Now lies the Earth all Dana? to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 10 

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
A...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Firefly

...The firefly's flame 
Is something for which science has no name 
I can think of nothing eerier 
Than flying around with an unidentified glow on a 
person's posteerier....Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

The Princess (part 1)

...the liberties. 

We followed up the river as we rode, 
And rode till midnight when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
And linden alley: then we past an arch, 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four winged horses dark against the stars; 
And some inscription ran along the front, 
But deep in shadow: further on we gained 
A little street half garden and half house; 
But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Witch Of Atlas

...r;
Carved lamps and chalices, and phials which shone
In their own golden beams--each like a flower
Out of whose depth a firefly shakes his light
Under a cypress in a starless night.

At first she lived alone in this wild home,
And her own thoughts were each a minister,
Clothing themselves or with the ocean-foam,
Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,
To work whatever purposes might come
Into her mind: such power her mighty Sire
Had girt them with, whether to fly or run
...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

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