Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Flake Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Simic, Charles
...ter coming. Like the last heroic soldier
Of a defeated army, you'll stay at your post,
Head bared to the first snow flake.
Till a neighbor comes to yell at you,
You're crazier than the weather, Charlie....Read more of this...



by Spenser, Edmund
...; for Hymen is awake, 25 
And long since ready forth his maske to move, 
With his bright Tead that flames with many a flake, 
And many a bachelor to waite on him, 
In theyr fresh garments trim. 
Bid her awake therefore, and soone her dight, 30 
For lo! the wish¨¨d day is come at last, 
That shall, for all the paynes and sorrowes past, 
Pay to her usury of long delight: 
And, whylest she doth her dight, 
Doe ye to her of joy and solace sing, 35 
That all the woo...Read more of this...

by Silverstein, Shel
...in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...peaceful home at last?

Though the skies are dark and the coast is bleak,
And the storm is wild and fierce,
Its frozen flake on the upturned cheek
Of the Pilgrim melts in tears,
And the dawn that springs from the darkness there
Is the morning light of an answered prayer.

The morning light of the day of Peace
That gladdens the aching eyes,
And gives to the soul that sweet release
That the present verifies,--
Nor a snow so deep, nor a wind so chill
To quench the flame of ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover me.
Paris white or flake white
or argentine, all in the washbasin
of my mouth, calling, "Oh."
I am empty. I am witless.
Death is here. There is no
other settlement. Snow!
See the mark, the pock, the pock!

Meanwhile you pour tea
with your handsome gentle hands.
Then you deliberately take your
forefinger and point it at my temple,
saying, "You suicide bi...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...sailing slow, 
And tethered for a prize: in evidence 
Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow 
Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence, 
The structure of that succorable cloud, 
What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud. 

Orbed--so the woman-figure poets call 
Because of rounds on rounds--that apple-shaped 
Head which its hair binds close into a ball 
Each side the curving ears--that pure undraped 
Pout of the sister paps--that . . . once fo...Read more of this...

by Hill, Geoffrey
...terror, so many routine cries.

(I have made
an elegy for myself it
is true)

September fattens on vines. Roses
flake from the wall. The smoke
of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.

This is plenty. This is more than enough....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep....Read more of this...

by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...'s tipsy,-- young jackanapes!-- show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?"-- Yes ! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close,-- you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,--
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old:--
That boy...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...here a blossom sailing, 
And here and there a lusty trout, 
And here and there a grayling, 

And here and there a foamy flake 
Upon me, as I travel 
With many a silvery waterbreak 
Above the golden gravel, 

And draw them all along, and flow 
To join the brimming river 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 
I slide by hazel covers; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 
That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...l follows with fretful persistence— 
Nay, taste, while awake,
This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball,
That peels, flake by flake,
Like an onion's, each smoother and whiter;
Next, sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
A leaf of the vine,— 
And end with the prickly-pear's red flesh
That leaves through its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth
...Scirocco is loose!
Hark! the quick, whistling pelt of the olives
Which, th...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...nd in Autumn 
Painted all the trees with scarlet, 
Stained the leaves with red and yellow; 
He it was who sent the snow-flake, 
Sifting, hissing through the forest, 
Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, 
Drove the loon and sea-gull southward, 
Drove the cormorant and curlew 
To their nests of sedge and sea-tang 
In the realms of Shawondasee.
Once the fierce Kabibonokka
Issued from his lodge of snow-drifts 
From his home among the icebergs, 
And his hair, with snow besp...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off ----

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere....Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ck! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die.' 

'Yea,' answered I, 'for this wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds--this honour, if ye will. 
It needs must be for honour if at all: 
Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail, 
And if we win, we fail: she would not keep 
Her compact.' ''Sdeath! but we will send to her,' 
Said Arac, 'worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue: let our missive through...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...iry currents,
Through transparent cloud and vapor,
And amid celestial splendors
On the Evening Star alighted,
As a snow-flake falls on snow-flake,
As a leaf drops on a river,
As the thistledown on water.
"Forth with cheerful words of welcome
Came the father of Osseo,
He with radiant locks of silver,
He with eyes serene and tender.
And he said: `My son, Osseo,
Hang the cage of birds you bring there,
Hang the cage with rods of silver,
And the birds with glistening feath...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...d that we render back again. 
That drop of godhood, like a precious stone, 
 May shine the brightest in the tiniest flake. 
Lavished on saints, to sinners not unknown; 
 In harlot, nun, philanthropist, and rake, 
It shines for those who love; none else discern 
 Evil from good; Men's fall did not bestow 
That threatened wisdom; blindly still we yearn 
 After a virtue that we do not know, 
Until our thirst and longing rise above 
The barriers of reason—and we love....Read more of this...

by Crowley, Aleister
...d; 
All smaragdine flows its flood. 
Glowing in the amber sky 
To ensorcelled porphyry 
She hath eyes of glittering flake 
Like a cold grey water-snake. 
She hath naked breasts of amber 
Jetting wine in her bed-chamber, 
Whereof whoso stoops and drinks 
Rees the riddle of the Sphinx. 

She hath naked limbs of amber 
Whereupon her children clamber. 
She hath five navels rosy-red 
From the five wounds of God that bled; 
Each wound that mothered her still bleedin...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
T...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Robert
...ng the usual green
when drenched by the sea.

The sea drenched the rock
at our feet all day,
and kept tearing away 
flake after flake.

One night you dreamed
you were a mermaid clinging to a wharf-pile,
and trying to pull
off the barnacles with your hands.

We wished our two souls 
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end, 
the water was too cold for us....Read more of this...

by Bly, Robert
...How strange to think of giving up all ambition!
Suddenly I see with such clear eyes
The white flake of snow
That has just fallen in the horse's mane!...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Flake poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things