Famous Foam Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Open Sea

by Dorothea Mackeller
 From my window I can see, 
Where the sandhills dip, 
One far glimpse of open sea. 
Just a slender slip 
Curving like a crescent moon— 
Yet a greater prize 
Than the harbour garden-fair 
Spread beneath my eyes. 

Just below me swings the bay, 
Sings a sunny tune, 
But my heart is far away 
Out beyond the dune; 
Clearer far...Read more of this...

Stanzas To A Lady On Leaving England

by George (Lord) Byron
 'Tis done---and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o'er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.

But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen---
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest---
I should...Read more of this...

Inversnaid

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home. 
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. 

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook...Read more of this...

Answer To A Sonnet By J.H.Reynolds

by John Keats
 "Dark eyes are dearer far
Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell."

Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven,—the domain
Of Cynthia,—the wide palace of the sun,— 
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,— 
The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters:—Ocean
And all its vassal streams, pools numberless,
May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside, if...Read more of this...

The Need to Love

by Alan Seeger
 The need to love that all the stars obey
Entered my heart and banished all beside.
Bare were the gardens where I used to stray;
Faded the flowers that one time satisfied.

Before the beauty of the west on fire,
The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed
Cloud-like arose the image of desire,
And cast out peace and maddened solitude.

I sought the City and the hopes it...Read more of this...

The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of...Read more of this...

Corot

by D. H. Lawrence
The trees rise tall and taller, lifted
On a subtle rush of cool grey flame
That issuing out of the dawn has sifted
    The spirit from each leaf's frame.

For the trailing, leisurely rapture of life
Drifts dimly forward, easily hidden
By bright leaves uttered aloud, and strife
    Of shapes in the grey mist chidden.

The grey, phosphorescent, pellucid advance
Of...Read more of this...

In The Foam

by Sidney Lanier
 Life swelleth in a whitening wave,
And dasheth thee and me apart.
I sweep out seaward: -- be thou brave.
And reach the shore, Sweetheart.

Beat back the backward-thrusting sea.
Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart,
Christ buffet the wild surge for thee
Till thou'rt ashore, Sweetheart.

Ah, now thy face grows dim apace,
And seems of yon white foam a part.
Canst hear me through the...Read more of this...

A Grave

by Marianne Moore
 Man looking into the sea,
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as
 you have to it yourself,
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing,
but you cannot stand in the middle of this;
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.
The firs stand in a procession, each with an...Read more of this...

The Home-Coming

by Robert William Service
 My boy's come back; he's here at last;
He came home on a special train.
My longing and my ache are past,
My only son is back again.
He's home with music, flags and flowers;
With peace and joy my heart's abrim;
He got here in the morning hours
With half the town to welcome him.

To hush my grief, night after night,
How I have digged my...Read more of this...

Aladdin and the Jinn

by Vachel Lindsay
 "Bring me soft song," said Aladdin.
"This tailor-shop sings not at all.
Chant me a word of the twilight,
Of roses that mourn in the fall.
Bring me a song like hashish
That will comfort the stale and the sad,
For I would be mending my spirit,
Forgetting these days that are bad,
Forgetting companions too shallow,
Their quarrels and arguments thin,
Forgetting the shouting Muezzin:"-- 
"I AM YOUR...Read more of this...

Ii

by Victor Hugo
 To prayer, my child! and O, be thy first prayer 
 For her who, many nights, with anxious care, 
 Rocked thy first cradle; who took thy infant soul 
 From heaven and gave it to the world; then rife 
 With love, still drank herself the gall of life, 
 And left for thy young lips the honeyed...Read more of this...

Winter Heavens

by George Meredith
 Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me,...Read more of this...

Ode To Salt

by Pablo Neruda
 This salt
in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes
when I heard
the voice of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the...Read more of this...

Mater Dolorosa

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears,...Read more of this...

The Destruction Of Sennacherib

by George (Lord) Byron
 The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest...Read more of this...

Late Summer Fires

by Les Murray
 The paddocks shave black
with a foam of smoke that stays,
welling out of red-black wounds.

In the white of a drought
this happens. The hardcourt game.
Logs that fume are mostly cattle,

inverted, stubby. Tree stumps are kilns.
Walloped, wiped, hand-pumped,
even this day rolls over, slowly.

At dusk, a family drives sheep 
out through the yellow
of the Aboriginal flag....Read more of this...

Old Tom

by Robert William Service
 The harridan who holds the inn
 At which I toss a pot,
Is old and uglier than sin,--
 I'm glad she knows me not.
Indeed, for me it's hard to think,
 Although my pow's like snow,
She was the lass so fresh and pink
 I courted long ago.

I wronged her, yet it's sadly true
 She wanted to be wronged:
They mostly do, although...Read more of this...

Earendil

by J R R Tolkien
 Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan
and light upon her banners laid.

In panolpy of ancient kings,
in chained rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

Song of the Sea-Wind

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 When the sun sets over the long blue wave
I spring from my couch of rest,
And I hurtle and boom over leagues of foam 
That toss in the weltering west,
I pipe a hymn to the headlands high, 
My comrades forevermore,
And I chase the tricksy curls of foam 
O'er the glimmering sandy shore. 

The moon is my friend on clear, white...Read more of this...

Ship Starting The

by Walt Whitman
 LO! the unbounded sea! 
On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sails—an ample Ship,
 carrying even her moonsails; 
The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so stately—below,
 emulous waves press forward, 
They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam....Read more of this...

Its Forth Across The Roaring Foam

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 IT'S forth across the roaring foam, and on towards the west,
It's many a lonely league from home, o'er many a mountain crest,
From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep around the fold,
To where the flags are flying beside the Gates of Gold.

Where all the deep-sea galleons ride that come to bring the corn,
Where falls the fog at eventide...Read more of this...

The Rose of Midnight

by Vachel Lindsay
 THE moon is now an opening flower, 
The sky a cliff of blue. 
The moon is now a silver rose; 
Her pollen is the dew.

Her pollen is the mist that swings 
Across her face of dreams: 
Her pollen is the April rain, 
Filling the April streams.

Her pollen is eternal life, 
Endless ambrosial foam. 
It feeds the swarming stars and...Read more of this...

Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
Lost Alexandria still burns
in a billion lightbulbs
Lives cross lives
idling at stoplights
Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs
'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness'
A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window
A yogi speaks at Ojai
'It's all taking pace in one mind'
On the lawn among the trees
lovers are...Read more of this...

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