Famous Forests Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Song of the Indian Maid from Endymion

by John Keats
 O SORROW! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?-- 
 To give maiden blushes 
 To the white rose bushes? 
 Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

 O Sorrow! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?-- 
 To give the glow-worm light? 
 Or, on...Read more of this...

The Ships of Saint John

by Bliss Carman
 Where are the ships I used to know,
That came to port on the Fundy tide
Half a century ago,
In beauty and stately pride?
In they would come past the beacon light,
With the sun on gleaming sail and spar,
Folding their wings like birds in flight
From countries strange and far.
Schooner and brig and barkentine,
I watched them slow as the sails were furled,
And wondered...Read more of this...

The Slaves Dream

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his Native Land.

Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.

He saw once more...Read more of this...

Unde Malum

by Czeslaw Milosz
 Where does evil come from?
It comes
from man
always from man
only from man
- Tadeusz Rozewicz
Alas, dear Tadeusz,
good nature and wicked man
are romantic inventions
you show us this way
the depth of your optimism
so let man exterminate
his own species
the innocent sunrise will illuminate
a liberated flora and fauna
where oak forests reclaim
the postindustrial wasteland
and the blood of a deer
torn asunder by a pack of wolves
is not...Read more of this...

On Looking for Models

by Alan Dugan
 The trees in time
have something else to do
besides their treeing. What is it.
I'm a starving to death
man myself, and thirsty, thirsty
by their fountains but I cannot drink
their mud and sunlight to be whole.
I do not understand these presences
that drink for months
in the dirt, eat light,
and then fast dry in the cold.
They stand it out somehow,
and how, the Botanists will...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid

by John Keats
Song of the Indian Maid 

O SORROW! 
Why dost borrow 
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?¡ª 
To give maiden blushes 
To the white rose bushes? 5 
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

O Sorrow! 
Why dost borrow 
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?¡ª 
To give the glow-worm light? 10 
Or, on a moonless night, 
To...Read more of this...

Senlin: His Cloudy Destiny

by Conrad Aiken
 1

Senlin sat before us and we heard him. 
He smoked his pipe before us and we saw him. 
Was he small, with reddish hair, 
Did he light his pipe with a meditative stare 
And a twinkling flame reflected in blue eyes? 
'I am alone': said Senlin; 'in a forest of leaves 
The single leaf that creeps and falls. 
The...Read more of this...

Brothers let us glorify freedom's twilight

by Osip Mandelstam
 Brothers, let us glorify freedom’s twilight –
the great, darkening year.
Into the seething waters of the night
heavy forests of nets disappear.
O Sun, judge, people, your light 
is rising over sombre years 

Let us glorify the deadly weight
the people’s leader lifts with tears.
Let us glorify the dark burden of fate,
power’s unbearable yoke of fears.
How your ship is sinking, straight,
he who has...Read more of this...

Sestina I

by Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA I. A qualunque animale alberga in terra. NIGHT BRINGS HIM NO REST. HE IS THE PREY OF DESPAIR.  To every animal that dwells on earth,Except to those which have in hate the sun,Their time of labour is while lasts the day;But when high heaven relumes its thousand stars,This seeks his...Read more of this...

The Aged Pilot Man

by Mark Twain
 On the Erie Canal, it was,
All on a summer's day,
I sailed forth with my parents
Far away to Albany.

From out the clouds at noon that day
There came a dreadful storm,
That piled the billows high about,
And filled us with alarm.

A man came rushing from a house,
Saying, "Snub up your boat I pray,
Snub up your boat, snub up, alas,
Snub up while yet...Read more of this...

532. Song—Their groves o' sweet myrtle

by Robert Burns
 THEIR groves o’ sweet myrtle let Foreign Lands reckon,
 Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan,
 Wi’ the burn stealing under the lang, yellow broom.
Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowèrs
 Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk, lowly, unseen;
For there, lightly tripping, among the wild flowèrs,
 A-list’ning the linnet,...Read more of this...

There is another sky

by Emily Dickinson
 There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!...Read more of this...

Nor We Of Her To Him

by Stevie Smith
 He said no word of her to us
Nor we of her to him,
But oh it saddened us to see
How wan he grew and thin.
We said: she eats him day and night
And draws the blood from him,
We did not know but said we thought
This was why he grew thin.

One day we called and rang the bell,
No answer came within,
We said:...Read more of this...

Night (This night agitated by the growing storm)

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 This night, agitated by the growing storm,
how it has suddenly expanded its dimensions--,
that ordinarily would have gone unnoticed,
like a cloth folded, and hidden in the folds of time.

Where the stars give resistance it does not stop there,
neither does it begin within the forest's depths,
nor show upon the surface of my face
nor with your appearance.

The lamps keep swaying, fully unaware:
is...Read more of this...

French Revolution The (excerpt)

by William Blake
 84 Thee the ancientest peer, Duke of Burgundy, rose from the monarch's right hand, red as wines
85 From his mountains; an odor of war, like a ripe vineyard, rose from his garments,
86 And the chamber became as a clouded sky; o'er the council he stretch'd his red limbs,
87 Cloth'd in flames of crimson; as a ripe vineyard stretches over...Read more of this...

Look What You Did Christopher!

by Ogden Nash
 In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
And to prove to the people, by actual test,
You could get to the East by sailing West.
Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!
And studied China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody...Read more of this...

Oban

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Oh! beautiful Oban with your lovely bay,
Your surroundings are magnificent on a fine summer-day;
There the lover of the picturesque can behold,
As the sun goes down, the scenery glittering like gold. 

And on a calm evening, behind the village let him climb the hill,
And as he watches the sun go down, with delight his heart will fill
As he beholds the...Read more of this...

Sea

by Katherine Mansfield
 The Sea called--I lay on the rocks and said:
"I am come."
She mocked and showed her teeth,
Stretching out her long green arms.
"Go away!" she thundered.
"Then tell me what I am to do," I begged.
"If I leave you, you will not be silent,
But cry my name in the cities
And wistfully entreat me in the plains and forests;
All else I forsake to...Read more of this...

We like March

by Emily Dickinson
 We like March.
His Shoes are Purple --
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler.
Makes he Forests dry.
Knows the Adder Tongue his coming
And presents her Spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty
That our Minds are hot.

News is he of all the others --
Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds exercising
On his British Sky.

---

We like...Read more of this...

Leaves From Australian Forests - Dedication

by Henry Kendall
To her who, cast with me in trying days, 
Stood in the place of health and power and praise;- 
Who, when I thought all light was out, became 
A lamp of hope that put my fears to shame;- 
Who faced for love's sole sake the life austere 
That waits upon the man of letters here;- 
Who, unawares, her deep affection...Read more of this...

He fumbles at your Soul

by Emily Dickinson
 He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on --
He stuns you by degrees --
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers -- further heard --
Then nearer -- Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten --
Your Brain -- to bubble Cool --
Deals -- One -- imperial -- Thunderbolt --
That scalps your naked...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIII: I Wake

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I wake! delusive phantoms hence, away!
Tempt not the weakness of a lover's breast;
The softest breeze can shake the halcyon's nest,
And lightest clouds o'ercast the dawning ray!
'Twas but a vision! Now, the star of day
Peers, like a gem on Aetna's burning crest!
Wellcome, ye Hills, with golden vintage drest;
Sicilian forests brown, and vallies gay!
A mournful stranger, from the Lesbian Isle,
Not strange,...Read more of this...

The Donkey

by G K Chesterton
 When forests walked and fishes flew 
And figs grew upon thorn, 
Some moment when the moon was blood, 
Then, surely, I was born. 

With monstrous head and sickening bray 
And ears like errant wings— 
The devil's walking parody 
Of all four-footed things: 

The battered outlaw of the earth 
Of ancient crooked will; 
Scourge, beat, deride me—I am dumb— 
I...Read more of this...

468. Song—On the Seas and far away

by Robert Burns
 HOW can my poor heart be glad,
When absent from my sailor lad;
How can I the thought forego—
He’s on the seas to meet the foe?
Let me wander, let me rove,
Still my heart is with my love;
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are with him that’s far away.


Chorus.—On the seas and far away,
On stormy seas and far away;
Nightly dreams and thoughts by...Read more of this...

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