Famous Forest Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Forest poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous forest poems. These examples illustrate what a famous forest poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Edward Thomas
Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead
Hang stars like seeds of light
In vain, though not since they were sown was bred
Anything more bright.
And evermore mighty multitudes ride
About, nor enter in;
Of the other multitudes that dwell inside
Never yet was one seen.
The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite
Outside is gold and white,
Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet
The others,...Read more of this...
by
Mihai Eminescu
Mighty emperor is the forest,
High dominion does he wield,
And a thousand races prosper
'Neath the shelter of his shield.
The moon, the sun and Lucifer
Do round his kingdom ever sphere;
While lords and ladies of his court
Are of the noble race of deer.
Hares, his heralds and his postmen,
Carry rapidly his mails;
Birds his...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being¡ª
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!¡ªO thou 5
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wing¨¨d seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Oh, the charm of idle dreaming
Where the dappled shadows dance,
All the leafy aisles are teeming
With the lure of old romance!
Down into the forest dipping,
Deep and deeper as we go,
One might fancy dryads slipping
Where the white-stemmed birches grow.
Lurking gnome and freakish fairy
In the fern may peep and hide . . .
Sure their whispers low and airy
Ring us...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Good hunting!—aye, good hunting,
Wherever the forests call;
But ever a heart beats hot with fear,
And what of the birds that fall?
Good hunting!—aye, good hunting,
Wherever the north winds blow;
But what of the stag that calls for his mate?
And what of the wounded doe?
Good hunting!—aye, good hunting;
And ah! we are bold and strong;
But our triumph call through the forest hall
Is a brother's funeral...Read more of this...
by
Nikki Giovanni
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the...Read more of this...
by
Sarojini Naidu
HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne
The...Read more of this...
by
Ruth Padel
Water, moonlight, danger, dream.
Bronze urn, angled on a tree root: one
Slash of light, then gone. A red moon
Seen through clouds, or almost seen.
Treasure found but lost, flirting between
The worlds of lost and found. An unjust law
Repealed, a wish come true, a lifelong
Sadness healed. Haven, in the mind,
To anyone hurt by littleness. A prayer
For the moment, saved; treachery forgiven.
Flame of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
I.
I DREAMED of forest alleys fair
And fields of gray-flowered grass,
Where by the yellow summer moon
My Jenny seemed to pass.
I dreamed the yellow summer moon,
Behind a cedar wood,
Lay white on fields of rippling grass
Where I and Jenny stood.
I dreamed - but fallen through my dream,
In a rainy land I lie
Where wan wet morning crowns the hills
Of grim reality.
II.
I am as...Read more of this...
by
Amy Levy
I lay beneath the pine trees,
And looked aloft, where, through
The dusky, clustered tree-tops,
Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue.
I shut my eyes, and a fancy
Fluttered my sense around:
"I lie here dead and buried,
And this is churchyard ground.
"I am at rest for ever;
Ended the stress and strife."
Straight I fell to and sorrowed
For the pitiful past life.
Right wronged, and knowledge wasted;
Wise labour...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
"HERE POPE FIRST SUNG!" O, hallow'd Tree !
Such is the boast thy bark displays;
Thy branches, like thy Patron's lays,
Shall ever, ever, sacred be;
Nor with'ring storm, nor woodman's stroke,
Shall harm the POET'S favourite Oak.
'Twas HERE, he woo'd his MUSE of fire,
While Inspiration's wond'rous art,
Sublimely stealing thro' his heart
Did Fancy's proudest themes inspire:
'Twas HERE he wisely learnt...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them,---ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
Where sunshine flecks the green,
Through towering woods my way
Goes winding all the day.
Scant are the flowers that bloom
Beneath the bosky screen
And cage of golden gloom.
Few are the birds that call,
Shrill-voiced and seldom seen.
Where silence masters all,
And light my footsteps fall,
The whispering runnels only
With blazing noon confer;
And comes no breeze...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
The last leaves fell like notes from a piano
and left their ovals echoing in the ear;
with gawky music stands, the winter forest
looks like an empty orchestra, its lines
ruled on these scattered manuscripts of snow.
The inlaid copper laurel of an oak
shines though the brown-bricked glass above your head
as bright as whisky, while the wintry breath
of lines from Mandelstam, which you...Read more of this...
by
Mihai Eminescu
On the pond bright sparks are falling,
Wavelets in the sunlight glisten ;
Gazing on the woods with rapture ,
Do I let my spirit capture
Drowsiness, and lie and listen...
Quails are calling.
All the silent water sleeping
Of the streams and of the rivers ;
Only where the sun is shining
Thousand circles there designing
As with...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
Out of the mid-wood's twilight
Into the meadow's dawn,
Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,
Flashes my Faun!
He skips through the copses singing,
And his shadow dances along,
And I know not which I should follow,
Shadow or song!
O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O Nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain!...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
Whether I loved you who shall say?
Whether I drifted down your way
In the endless River of Chance and Change,
And you woke the strange
Unknown longings that have no names,
But burn us all in their hidden flames,
...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave
And spread the roof above them¡ªere he framed
The lofty vault to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 5
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Allan Poe
'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
These Fevered Days -- to take them to the Forest
Where Waters cool around the mosses crawl --
And shade is all that devastates the stillness
Seems it sometimes this would be all --...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
How calm, how beauteous and how cool--
How like a sister to the skies,
Appears the broad, transparent pool
That in this quiet forest lies.
The sunshine ripples on its face,
And from the world around, above,
It hath caught down the nameless grace
Of such reflections as we love.
But deep below its surface crawl
The reptile horrors of the night--
The dragons, lizards, serpents--all
The hideous brood that...Read more of this...
by
Mihai Eminescu
"Forest, trusted friend and true,
Forest dear, how do you do?
Since the day i saw you last
Many, many years have passed
And though you still steadfast stand
I have traveled many a land."
"Yea, and I, what have I done?
Watched the years their seasons run;
Heard the squalls that through me groan
Ere my singing birds have...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Tell it to the forest fire, tell it to the moon,
mention it in general to the moon
on the way down,
he's about to have his lady, permanent;
and this is the worst of all came ever sent
writhing Henry's way.
Ha ha, fifth column, quisling, genocide,
he held his hands & laught from side to side
a loverly time.
The berries & the rods left him...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Through the forest, followed, Henry made his silky way,
No chickadee was troubled, small moss smiled
on his swift passage.
But there were those ahead when at midday
they met in a clearing and lookt at each other awhile.
To kill was not the message.
He only could go with them-”odds? 20 to one-and-a-half;
pointless. Besides, palaver with the High Chief
might advance THE CAUSE.
Undoubtedly down...Read more of this...
by
Gabriela Mistral
Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
The night watches over its creatures,
except for the pine trees that never change:
the old wounded springs that spring
blessed gum, eternal afternoons.
If they could, the trees would lift you
and carry you from valley to valley,
and you would...Read more of this...
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