Famous Glass Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Hour-glass

by Robert Herrick
 That hour-glass which there you see
With water fill'd, sirs, credit me,
The humour was, as I have read,
But lovers' tears incrystalled.
Which, as they drop by drop do pass
From th' upper to the under-glass,
Do in a trickling manner tell,
By many a watery syllable,
That lovers' tears in lifetime shed
Do restless run when they are dead....Read more of this...

The Burning-Glass

by George William Russell
 A SHAFT of fire that falls like dew,
 And melts and maddens all my blood,
From out thy spirit flashes through
 The burning-glass of womanhood.


Only so far; here must I stay:
 Nearer I miss the light, the fire;
I must endure the torturing ray,
 And with all beauty, all desire.


Ah, time long must the effort be,
 And far the way that...Read more of this...

absinthe and stained glass

by Rg Gregory
 (i)
absinthe makes the hurt grow fonder
the green fairy burbles what's this 'ere
when vincent (sozzled) knifes his lug off
all spirits then succumb to fear
depression takes the gloss off wonder
and people (lost) tell god to bug off
the twentieth century drowns in sheer
excuse that life is comic blunder
temporality dons its gear
forbidden thought soon rips its gag off

stained glass (you think) must be...Read more of this...

Sonnet III: Look In Thy Glass and Tell the Face Thou Viewest

by William Shakespeare
 Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest 
Now is the time that face should form another; 
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, 
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. 
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb 
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? 
Or who is he so fond will be the...Read more of this...

Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

by William Shakespeare
 Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou...Read more of this...

Through a Glass Darkly

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 What we, when face to face we see
The Father of our souls, shall be,
John tells us, doth not yet appear;
Ah! did he tell what we are here!

A mind for thoughts to pass into,
A heart for loves to travel through,
Five senses to detect things near,
Is this the whole that we are here?

Rules baffle instincts--instinct rules,
Wise men are bad--and good are...Read more of this...

The Lady who offers her Looking-Glass to Venus

by Matthew Prior
 VENUS, take my votive glass: 
Since I am not what I was, 
What from this day I shall be, 
Venus, let me never see....Read more of this...

A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass

by Gertrude Stein
A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading....Read more of this...

Glass was the Street -- in tinsel Peril

by Emily Dickinson
 Glass was the Street -- in tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood --
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road --

Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrations
Emphasized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes this Present mean --...Read more of this...

Venetian Glass

by Amy Lowell
 As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea
Far out of sight of land, his mind intent
Upon the sailing of his little boat,
On tightening ropes and shaping fair his course,
Hears suddenly, across the restless sea,
The rhythmic striking of some towered clock,
And wakes from thoughtless idleness to time:
Time, the slow pulse which beats eternity!
So through the vacancy of busy life
At...Read more of this...

'Tis dawn! my heart with wine I will recruit,

by Omar Khayyam
'Tis dawn! my heart with wine I will recruit,
And dash to bits the glass of good repute;
My long-extending hopes I will renounce,
And grasp long tresses, and the charming lute....Read more of this...

356. Epigram—The Keekin Glass

by Robert Burns
 HOW daur ye ca’ me “Howlet-face”?
 Ye blear-e’ed, withered spectre!
Ye only spied the keekin-glass,
 An’ there ye saw your picture....Read more of this...

Portsmouths Looking Glass

by John Wilmot
 Methinks I see you, newly risen
From your embroider'd Bed and pissing,
With studied mien and much grimace,
Present yourself before your glass,
To vanish and smooth o'er those graces,
You rubb'd off in your Night Embraces....Read more of this...

Glass

by Robert Francis
 Words of a poem should be glass
But glass so simple-subtle its shape
Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,
Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.
Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence.

Words should be looked through, should be windows.
The best word were invisible.
The poem is the thing the poet thinks.

If the impossible were not,
And...Read more of this...

I Look Into My Glass

by Thomas Hardy
 I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide....Read more of this...

Popcorn Glass Balls and Cranberries

by Vachel Lindsay
 I. THE LION

The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.

He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
And all is family peace again.


II. AN EXPLANATION OF THE GRASSHOPPER

The Grasshopper, the grasshopper,
I will explain to you:— 
He...Read more of this...

Looking-Glass River

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Smooth it glides upon its travel, 
Here a wimple, there a gleam-- 
O the clean gravel! 
O the smooth stream! 

Sailing blossoms, silver fishes, 
Pave pools as clear as air-- 
How a child wishes 
To live down there! 

We can see our colored faces 
Floating on the shaken pool 
Down in cool places, 
Dim and very cool; 

Till a...Read more of this...

Glass

by Robert Francis
 O Man! what Inspiration was thy Guide, 
Who taught thee Light and Air thus to divide; 
To let in all the useful Beams of Day, 
Yet force, as subtil Winds, without thy Shash to stay; 
T'extract from Embers by a strange Device, 
Then polish fair these Flakes of solid Ice; 
Which, silver'd o'er, redouble all in place, 
And give...Read more of this...

Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old

by William Shakespeare
 My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.
How can I then be...Read more of this...

The Looking-glass

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dinah stan' befo' de glass,
Lookin' moughty neat,
An' huh purty shadder sass
At huh haid an' feet.
While she sasshay 'roun' an' bow,
Smilin' den an' poutin' now,
An' de lookin'-glass, I 'low,
Say: "Now, ain't she sweet?"
All she do, de glass it see,
Hit des see, no mo',
Seems to me, hit ought to be
Drappin' on de flo'.
She go w'en huh time git slack,
Kissin' han's an' smilin'...Read more of this...

Epilogue to Through the Looking Glass

by Lewis Carroll
 A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July --

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear
Pleased a simple tale to hear --

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing...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 77: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear

by William Shakespeare
 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory,
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit...Read more of this...

Lament

by Barry Tebb
 How I loathe this land of my exile,

Concrete upon concrete,

Steel upon steel,

Glass upon glass

In massed battalions

And no way back.

My mind moves to a far-off place

To a hill-top where the wind is my succour,

Its blow and howl and rage

Over the springing turf and heather

Calms as the song of a mother

And the last light’s glimmer....Read more of this...

Beach Glass

by Amy Clampitt
 While you walk the water's edge,
turning over concepts
I can't envision, the honking buoy
serves notice that at any time
the wind may change,
the reef-bell clatters
its treble monotone, deaf as Cassandra
to any note but warning. The ocean,
cumbered by no business more urgent 
than keeping open old accounts
that never balanced,
goes on shuffling its millenniums
of quartz, granite, and basalt.
 It behaves
toward the permutations of...Read more of this...

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