Famous Gazing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Protus

by Robert Browning
 Among these latter busts we count by scores,
Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,
Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,
Loricand low-browed Gorgon on the breast,---
One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear.

Now read here. ``Protus ends a period
``Of empery beginning with a god;
``Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,
``Queens...Read more of this...

Sappho - A Monodrama

by Robert Southey
 Argument.

To leap from the promontory of LEUCADIA was believed by the Greeks to be
a remedy for hopeless love, if the self-devoted victim escaped with
life. Artemisia lost her life in the dangerous experiment: and Sappho is
said thus to have perished, in attempting to cure her passion for Phaon.


SAPPHO

(Scene the promontory of Leucadia.)

This is the spot:--'tis here Tradition says
That hopeless Love...Read more of this...

Liza May

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Little brown face full of smiles,
And a baby's guileless wiles,
Liza May, Liza May.
Eyes a-peeping thro' the fence
With an interest intense,
Liza May.
Ah, the gate is just ajar,
And the meadow is not far,
Liza May, Liza May.
And the road feels very sweet,
To your little toddling feet,
Liza May.
Ah, you roguish runaway,
What will toiling mother say,
Liza May, Liza May?
What care you who smile to greet
Everyone...Read more of this...

While Gazing on the Moons Light

by Thomas Moore
 While gazing on the moon's light, 
A moment from her smile I turn'd, 
To look at orbs that, more bright, 
In lone and distant glory burn'd. 
But too far 
Each proud star, 
For me to feel its warming flame; 
Much more dear 
That mild sphere, 
Which near our planet smiling came;
Thus, Mary, be but thou my own, 
While brighter...Read more of this...

Listening to the moon

by Yosa Buson
 Listening to the moon,
gazing at the croaking of frogs
in a field of ripe rice....Read more of this...

If Im lost -- now

by Emily Dickinson
 If I'm lost -- now
That I was found --
Shall still my transport be --
That once -- on me -- those Jasper Gates
Blazed open -- suddenly --

That in my awkward -- gazing -- face --
The Angels -- softly peered --
And touched me with their fleeces,
Almost as if they cared --
I'm banished -- now -- you know it --
How foreign that...Read more of this...

Pensive on Her Dead Gazing I Heard the Mother of All

by Walt Whitman
 PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, 
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; 
(As the last gun ceased—but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) 
As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: 
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried—I charge you, lose not my...Read more of this...

The Sprig of Moss

by William Topaz McGonagall
 There lived in Munich a poor, weakly youth,
But for the exact date, I cannot vouch for the truth,
And of seven of a family he was the elder,
Who was named, by his parents, Alois Senefelder. 

But, poor fellow, at home his father was lying dead,
And his little brothers and sisters were depending upon him for bread,
And one evening he was...Read more of this...

Writing To Onegin

by Ruth Padel
 (After Pushkin) 
Look at the bare wood hand-waxed floor and long 
White dressing-gown, the good child's writing-desk 
And passionate cold feet
Summoning music of the night - tumbrils, gongs
And gamelans - with one neat pen, one candle
Puttering its life out hour by hour. 
Is "Tell Him I love him" never a good idea? You can't wish this
Unlived - this world...Read more of this...

Gazing at the Cascade on Lu Mountain

by Li Po
 Where crowns a purple haze
Ashimmer in sunlight rays
The hill called Incense-Burner Peak, from far
To see, hung o'er the torrent's wall,
That waterfall
Vault sheer three thousand feet, you'd say
The Milky Way
Was tumbling from the high heavens, star on star...Read more of this...

Adieu to Belshanny

by William Allingham
 Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born; 
Go where I may, I'll think of you, as sure as night and morn. 
The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known, 
And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own; 
There's not a house or window, there's not a field or hill,...Read more of this...

Tom Mays Death

by Andrew Marvell
 As one put drunk into the Packet-boat,
Tom May was hurry'd hence and did not know't.
But was amaz'd on the Elysian side,
And with an Eye uncertain, gazing wide,
Could not determine in what place he was,
For whence in Stevens ally Trees or Grass.
Nor where the Popes head, nor the Mitre lay,
Signs by which still he found and lost his way.
At last...Read more of this...

On the Funeral of Charles the First

by William Lisle Bowles
 The castle clock had tolled midnight:
With mattock and with spade,
And silent, by the torches' light,
His corse in earth we laid.

The coffin bore his name, that those
Of other years might know,
When earth its secrets should disclose,
Whose bones were laid below.

"Peace to the dead" no children sung,
Slow pacing up the nave,--
No prayers were read, no knell was rung,
As deep we dug...Read more of this...

Full Moon and Little Frieda

by Ted Hughes
 A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood,...Read more of this...

Go Where Glory Waits Thee

by Thomas Moore
 Go where glory waits thee, 
But while fame elates thee, 
Oh! still remember me. 
When the praise thou meetest 
To thine ear is sweetest, 
Oh! then remember me. 
Other arms may press thee, 
Dearer friends caress thee, 
All the joys that bless thee, 
Sweeter far may be; 
But when friends are nearest, 
And when joys are dearest, 
Oh! then...Read more of this...

Maud Muller

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Maud Muller on a summer's day 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague...Read more of this...

Her Late Husband (Kings-Hintock 182-.)

by Thomas Hardy
 "No--not where I shall make my own; 
 But dig his grave just by 
The woman's with the initialed stone - 
 As near as he can lie - 
After whose death he seemed to ail, 
 Though none considered why. 

"And when I also claim a nook, 
 And your feet tread me in, 
Bestow me, under my...Read more of this...

Orlie Wilde

by James Whitcomb Riley
 A goddess, with a siren's grace,--
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.

Wrought was she of a painter's dream,--
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.

I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece's history.
He turned--REturned--and thus beguiled
Me with the...Read more of this...

Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art

by John Keats
 Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
 Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
 Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
 Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
 Pillow'd...Read more of this...

The Rain Was Ending And Light

by Laurence Binyon
 The rain was ending, and light
Lifting the leaden skies.
It shone upon ceiling and floor
And dazzled a child's eyes.

Pale after fever, a captive
Apart from his schoolfellows,
He stood at the high room's window
With face to the pane pressed close,

And beheld an immense glory
Flooding with fire the drops
Spilled on miraculous leaves
Of the fresh green lime-tree tops.

Washed gravel glittered red
To a wall, and...Read more of this...

The Glass On The Bar

by Henry Lawson
 Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn, 
And one of them called for the drinks with a grin; 
They'd only returned from a trip to the North, 
And, eager to greet them, the landlord came forth. 
He absently poured out a glass of Three Star. 
And set down that drink with the rest on the bar. 

`There,...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XLVI. Mente mia che presaga de' tuoi danni. HE RECALLS WITH GRIEF THEIR LAST MEETING.  My mind! prophetic of my coming fate,Pensive and gloomy while yet joy was lent,[Pg 271]On the loved lineaments still fix'd, intentTo seek dark bodings, ere thy sorrow's date!From her sweet acts, her...Read more of this...

The Captured Goddess

by Amy Lowell
 Over the housetops,
Above the rotating chimney-pots,
I have seen a shiver of amethyst,
And blue and cinnamon have flickered
A moment,
At the far end of a dusty street.
Through sheeted rain
Has come a lustre of crimson,
And I have watched moonbeams
Hushed by a film of palest green.
It was her wings,
Goddess!
Who stepped over the clouds,
And laid her rainbow feathers
Aslant on the currents of the air.
I...Read more of this...

Oh fair enough are sky and plain

by A E Housman
 Oh fair enough are sky and plain, 
But I know fairer far: 
Those are as beautiful again 
That in the water are; 

The pools and rivers wash so clean 
The trees and clouds and air, 
The like on earth was never seen, 
And oh that I were there. 

These are the thoughts I often think 
As I stand gazing...Read more of this...

Melancholia

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Silently without my window,
Tapping gently at the pane,
Falls the rain.
Through the trees sighs the breeze
Like a soul in pain.
Here alone I sit and weep;
Thought hath banished sleep.
Wearily I sit and listen
To the water's ceaseless drip.
To my lip
Fate turns up the bitter cup,
Forcing me to sip;
'T is a bitter, bitter drink,
Thus I sit and think,—
Thinking things unknown and awful,
Thoughts on wild,...Read more of this...

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