Famous Gleam Poems by Famous Poets

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

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On The Death Of A Favourite Cat Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes

by Thomas Gray
 'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she...Read more of this...

Octaves

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand. 

II 

Tumultuously void of a clean...Read more of this...

The Beleaguered City

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I have read, in some old, marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.

White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.

No other voice...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city

by Conrad Aiken
 The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city,
Over the pale grey tumbled towers,—
And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls.
Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,
Curls like a dream among the motionless trees
And seems to freeze.

The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms,
Whirls over sleeping faces,
Spins in an atomy dance round misty street lamps;
And blows in...Read more of this...

The Owls

by Charles Baudelaire
 UNDER the overhanging yews, 
The dark owls sit in solemn state, 
Like stranger gods; by twos and twos 
Their red eyes gleam. They meditate. 

Motionless thus they sit and dream 
Until that melancholy hour 
When, with the sun's last fading gleam, 
The nightly shades assume their power. 

From their still attitude the wise 
Will learn with terror to despise...Read more of this...

Three Odes To My Friend

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THESE are the most singular of all the Poems 
of Goethe, and to many will appear so wild and fantastic, as to 
leave anything but a pleasing impression. Those at the beginning, 
addressed to his friend Behrisch, were written at the age of eighteen, 
and most of the remainder were composed while he was still quite 
young. Despite, however,...Read more of this...

Defence of Fort MHenry

by Francis Scott Key
 Tune -- ANACREON IN HEAVEN 
O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still...Read more of this...

Storm-Music

by Henry Van Dyke
 O Music hast thou only heard
The laughing river, the singing bird,
The murmuring wind in the poplar-trees,--
Nothing but Nature's melodies?
Nay, thou hearest all her tones, 
As a Queen must hear! 
Sounds of wrath and fear, 
Mutterings, shouts, and moans, 
Madness, tumult, and despair,
All she has that shakes the air 
With voices fierce and wild!
Thou art a Queen and not a...Read more of this...

A Gleam Of Sunshine

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 This is the place. Stand still, my steed,
Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy Past
The forms that once have been.

The Past and Present here unite
Beneath Time's flowing tide,
Like footprints hidden by a brook,
But seen on either side.

Here runs the highway to the town;
There the green lane descends,
Through which I walked to church with thee,
O gentlest of my...Read more of this...

Towards Break Of Day

by William Butler Yeats
 Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?

I thought: "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.

I would have...Read more of this...

A Rondeau of College Rhymes

by Henry Van Dyke
 Our college rhymes,--how light they seem,
Like little ghosts of love's young dream
That led our boyish hearts away
From lectures and from books, to stray
By flowery mead and flowing stream!

There's nothing here, in form or theme,
Of thought sublime or art supreme:
We would not have the critic weigh
Our college rhymes.

Yet if, perchance, a slender beam
Of feeling's glow or fancy's gleam
Still lingers in...Read more of this...

The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit

by Vachel Lindsay
 A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS


Censers are swinging,
Over the town;
Censers are swinging,
Look overhead!
Censers are swinging,
Heaven comes down.
City, dead city,
Awake from the dead!

Censers, tremendous,
Gleam overhead.
Wind-harps are ringing,
Wind-harps unseen—
Calling and calling:—
"Wake from the dead.
Rise, little city,
Shine like a queen."

Soldiers of Christ
For battle grow keen.
Heaven-sent winds
Haunt alley and lane.
Singing of life
In town-meadows green
After the toil
And battle and pain.

Incense is pouring
Like the spring...Read more of this...

The Burghers

by Thomas Hardy
 THE sun had wheeled from Grey's to Dammer's Crest,
And still I mused on that Thing imminent:
At length I sought the High-street to the West.

The level flare raked pane and pediment
And my wrecked face, and shaped my nearing friend
Like one of those the Furnace held unshent.

"I've news concerning her," he said. "Attend.
They fly to-night at the late moon's first gleam:
Watch...Read more of this...

Tableau at Twilight

by Ogden Nash
 I sit in the dusk. I am all alone.
Enter a child and an ice-cream cone.

A parent is easily beguiled
By sight of this coniferous child.

The friendly embers warmer gleam,
The cone begins to drip ice cream.

Cones are composed of many a vitamin.
My lap is not the place to bitamin.

Although my raiment is not chinchilla,
I flinch to see it become vanilla.

Coniferous child,...Read more of this...

Jenny Carrister The Heroine of Lucknow-Mine

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A heroic story I will unfold,
Concerning Jenny Carrister, a heroine bold,
Who lived in Australia, at a gold mine called Lucknow,
And Jenny was beloved by the the miners, somehow. 

Jenny was the only daughter of the old lady who owned the mine-
And Jenny would come of an evening, like a gleam of sunshine,
And by the presence of her bright face...Read more of this...

The Beacon of Fires

by Aeschylus
AGLEAM -- a gleam -- from Ida's height,
By the Fire-god sent, it came;
From watch to watch it leapt, that light,
As a rider rode the flame!
It shot through the startled sky,
And the torch of that blazing glory
Old Lemnos caught on high,
On its holy promontory,
And sent it on, the jocund sign,
To Athos, Mount of Jove divine.
Wildly the while, it rose from the...Read more of this...

The Peri

by Victor Hugo
 Beautiful spirit, come with me 
 Over the blue enchanted sea: 
 Morn and evening thou canst play 
 In my garden, where the breeze 
 Warbles through the fruity trees; 
 No shadow falls upon the day: 
 There thy mother's arms await 
 Her cherished infant at the gate. 
 Of Peris I the loveliest far— 
...Read more of this...

Oh! Blame Not the Bard

by Thomas Moore
 Oh! blame not the bard, if he fly to the bowers 
Where Pleasure lies, carelessly smiling at Fame; 
He was born for much more, and in happier hours 
His soul might have burn'd with a holier flame. 
The string, that now languishes loose o'er the lyre, 
Might have bent a proud bow to the warrior's dart;
And the lip, which...Read more of this...

The Apartment House

by Joyce Kilmer
 Severe against the pleasant arc of sky
The great stone box is cruelly displayed.
The street becomes more dreary from its shade,
And vagrant breezes touch its walls and die.
Here sullen convicts in their chains might lie,
Or slaves toil dumbly at some dreary trade.
How worse than folly is their labor made
Who cleft the rocks that this might rise on high!
Yet, as I...Read more of this...

Low Tide on Grand Pré

by Bliss Carman
 The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.
And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream--

A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Wedding-Feast

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
How the handsome Yenadizze 
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding; 
How the gentle Chibiabos, 
He the sweetest of musicians, 
Sang his songs of love and longing; 
How Iagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
Told his tales of strange adventure, 
That the feast might be more joyous, 
That the time might pass more gayly, 
And...Read more of this...

At Night On The High Seas

by Hermann Hesse
 At night, when the sea cradles me
And the pale star gleam
Lies down on its broad waves,
Then I free myself wholly
From all activity and all the love
And stand silent and breathe purely,
Alone, alone cradled by the sea
That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.
Then I have to think of my friends
And my gaze sinks into their gazes
And I...Read more of this...

Botany Bay Eclogues 02 - Elinor

by Robert Southey
 (Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.)

Once more to daily toil--once more to wear
The weeds of infamy--from every joy
The heart can feel excluded, I arise
Worn out and faint with unremitting woe;
And once again with wearied steps I trace
The hollow-sounding shore. The swelling waves
Gleam to the morning sun, and dazzle o'er
With many a splendid hue the breezy strand.
Oh there was once a...Read more of this...

The gleam of an heroic Act

by Emily Dickinson
 The gleam of an heroic Act
Such strange illumination
The Possible's slow fuse is lit
By the Imagination....Read more of this...

Each small gleam was a voice

by Stephen Crane
 Each small gleam was a voice,
A lantern voice --
In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.
A chorus of colours came over the water;
The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered,
No pines crooned on the hills,
The blue night was elsewhere a silence,
When the chorus of colours came over the water,
Little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

Small glowing pebbles
Thrown on the dark plane...Read more of this...

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