Famous Footfalls Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Footfalls poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous footfalls poems. These examples illustrate what a famous footfalls poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...Above the currents that tarnish and profane
As silver summits are whose pure repose
No curious eyes disclose
Nor any footfalls stain,
But round their beauty on azure evenings
Only the oreads go on gauzy wings,
Only the oreads troop with dance and song
And airy beings in rainbow mists who throng
Out of those wonderful worlds that lie afar
Betwixt the outmost cloud and the nearest star.
Like the moon, sanguine in the orient night
Shines the red flower in her beauti...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...
And wash of being. I hear it yaw and glide,
And then subside,
Along these ghostly corridors and halls
Like faint footfalls;
The hangings stir in the air;
And when I start and challenge, "Who goes there?"
It answers, "Where?"
The wail and sob and moan of the sea's dirge,
Its plangor and surge;
The awful biting sough
Of drifted snows along some arctic bluff,
That veer and luff,
And have the vacant boding human cry,
As they go by;—
Is it a banished soul
Dr...Read more of this...
by
Carman, Bliss
...the old man's songs and united the fragments together.
As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases,
Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar,
So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the clock clicked.
Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, suddenly lifted,
Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its hinges.
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil the blacksmith,
And by her beati...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through t...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...s shores.
Thy spirit is around,
Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along;
And this eternal sound--
Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng--
Like the resounding sea,
Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee.
And when the hours of rest
Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine,
Hushing its billowy breast--
The quiet of that moment too is thine;
It breathes of him who keeps
The vast and helpless city while it sleeps....Read more of this...
by
Bryant, William Cullen
...miling face of her.
I pray not for
Great riches, nor
For vast estates, and castle-halls,-
Give me to hear the bare footfalls
Of children o’er
An oaken floor,
New-risen with sunshine, or bespread
With but the tiny coverlet
And pillow for the baby’s head;
And pray Thou, may
The door stand open and the day
Send ever in a gentle breeze,
With fragrance from the locust-trees,
And drowsy moan of doves, and blur
Of robin-chirps, and drove of bees,
With afterhushes of...Read more of this...
by
Riley, James Whitcomb
...There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
collections burned and reborn twice.
There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through ...Read more of this...
by
Gorman, Amanda
...als' first assembling cry,
And among the purple shadows of the mangroves and the marshes
Fitful echoes of their footfalls passing by.
Ah, come soon! my arms are empty, and so weary for your beauty,
I am thirsty for the music of your voice.
Come to make the marshes joyous with the sweetness of your presence,
Let your nearing feet bid all the sands rejoice!
My hands, my lips are feverish with the longing and the waiting
And no softness of the...Read more of this...
by
Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory
...gel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
Angel of health, did you ever know pain,
Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls
The cold length of the white infirmary walls,
With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Know you the fear of age, the torment vile
Of reading secret horror in the smile
Of eyes your eyes have loved since long ago?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
A...Read more of this...
by
Baudelaire, Charles
...ar a hidden music . . . Our own vast shadows
Lean to a giant size on the windy walls,
Or dwindle away; we hear our soft footfalls
Echo forever behind us, ghostly clear,
Music sings far off, flows suddenly near,
And dies away like rain . . .
We walk through subterranean caves again,—
Vaguely above us feeling
A shadowy weight of frescos on the ceiling,
Strange half-lit things,
Soundless grotesques with writhing claws and wings . . .
And here a beautiful face looks down upon us;...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...mmands;
Kings glory in the orb and crown--
Be ours the glory of our hands.
Long in these walls--long may we greet
Your footfalls, peace and concord sweet!
Distant the day, oh! distant far,
When the rude hordes of trampling war
Shall scare the silent vale;
And where,
Now the sweet heaven, when day doth leave
The air,
Limns its soft rose-hues on the veil of eve;
Shall the fierce war-brand tossing in the gale,
From town and hamlet shake the horrent glare!
Now, its destined tas...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...isten! listen! surely something stirred
Within the house, and creeping down the halls
Draws close to me with sinister footfalls.
Will long pale fingers softly lift the latch,
And lead me up, under the osier thatch,
To a little room, a little secret room,
Hung with green arras picturing the doom,
The most disasterous death of some proud knight?
And shall I search the room by candle-light
And see, behind the curtains of my bed,
A murdered man who sleeps as sleep the d...Read more of this...
by
Wylie, Elinor
...-take.
To me, the earth rolls ponderously, superbly
Coming my way without forethought or afterthought.
To me, men's footfalls fall with a dull, soft rumble, ominous and lovely,
Coming my way.
But not your foot-falls, pale-faces,
They are a clicketing of bits of disjointed metal
Working in motion.
To me, men are palpable, invisible nearnesses in the dark
Sending out magnetic vibrations of warning, pitch-dark throbs of invitation.
But you, pale-faces,
You are pai...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...and tender;
And, all the while, the old-time smile
Plays on my visage, grim and wrinkled,--
As though, soubrette, your footfalls yet
Upon my rusty heart-strings tinkled!...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...profound and clear;
Or, lastly if in heart ye roam,
Not caring to do else, and hear,
Safe sitting by the fire at home,
Footfalls in Utah or Pamere:
Though long the way, though hard to bear
The sun and rain, the dust and dew;
Though still attainment and despair
Inter the old, despoil the new;
There shall at length, be sure, O friends,
Howe'er ye steer, whate'er ye do -
At length, and at the end of ends,
The golden city come in view....Read more of this...
by
Stevenson, Robert Louis
...WHILE the hum and the hurry
Of passing footfalls
Beat in my ear like the restless surf
Of a wind-blown sea,
A soul came to me
Out of the look on a face.
Eyes like a lake
Where a storm-wind roams
Caught me from under
The rim of a hat.
I thought of a midsea wreck
and bruised fingers clinging
to a broken state-room door....Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...made tame
On a sudden at his fame?
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright
With serpentine and syenite,
Steps, with five other generals,
That simultaneously take snuff,
For each to have pretext enough
To kerchiefwise unfurl his sash
Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
Waring, in Moscow, to those rough
Co...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
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