Famous Glimpse Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Though the Last Glimpse of Erin With Sorrow I See

by Thomas Moore
 Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see, 
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me; 
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home, 
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam. 

To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore, 
Where the eye of the stranger can haunt us no more, 
I...Read more of this...

Ode to Melancholy

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SORC'RESS of the Cave profound! 
Hence, with thy pale, and meagre train, 
Nor dare my roseate bow'r profane, 
Where light-heel'd mirth despotic reigns, 
Slightly bound in feath'ry chains, 
And scatt'ring blisses round. 

Hence, to thy native Chaos­where
Nurs'd by thy haggard Dam, DESPAIR, 
Shackled by thy numbing spell, 
Mis'ry's pallid children dwell; 
Where, brooding o'er thy fatal charms, 
FRENZY rolls...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXII: What May the Woman

by George Meredith
 What may the woman labour to confess?
There is about her mouth a nervous twitch.
'Tis something to be told, or hidden:--which?
I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess.
She has desires of touch, as if to feel
That all the household things are things she knew.
She stops before the glass. What sight in view?
A face that seems the latest to...Read more of this...

A Glimpse

by Walt Whitman
 A GLIMPSE, through an interstice caught, 
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove, late of a winter
 night—And I
 unremark’d seated in a corner; 
Of a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near,
 that
 he
 may hold me by the hand; 
A long while, amid the...Read more of this...

My Aviary

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 THROUGH my north window, in the wintry weather,--
My airy oriel on the river shore,--
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together
Where late the boatman flashed his dripping oar.

The gull, high floating, like a sloop unladen,
Lets the loose water waft him as it will;
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic maiden,
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still.

I see the solemn gulls in...Read more of this...

The Funeral of the German Emperor

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Ye sons of Germany, your noble Emperor William now is dead.
Who oft great armies to battle hath led;
He was a man beloved by his subjects all,
Because he never tried them to enthral. 

The people of Germany have cause now to mourn,
The loss of their hero, who to them will ne'er return;
But his soul I hope to Heaven has fled...Read more of this...

The Hound of Heaven

by Francis Thompson
 I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated
Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears
From those strong feet that followed, followed...Read more of this...

The dreams

by Eugene Field
 Two dreams came down to earth one night
From the realm of mist and dew;
One was a dream of the old, old days,
And one was a dream of the new.

One was a dream of a shady lane
That led to the pickerel pond
Where the willows and rushes bowed themselves
To the brown old hills beyond.

And the people that peopled the old-time dream
Were...Read more of this...

A Passing Glimpse

by Robert Frost
 To Ridgely Torrence
On Last Looking into His 'Hesperides'



I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--

Not bluebells gracing a...Read more of this...

The Wildy Ones

by Robert William Service
 The sheep are in the silver wood,
 The cows are in the broom;
The goats are in the wild mountain
 And won't be home by noon.

My mother sang that olden tune
 Most every night,
And to her newest she would croon
 By candle light;
While cuddling in the velvet gloom
 I'd dream of cows
That sought each dawn 'mid golden broom
 To gently...Read more of this...

Tithonus

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, 
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, 
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, 
And after many a summer dies the swan. 
Me only cruel immortality 
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms, 
Here at the quiet limit of the world, 
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream...Read more of this...

The Wood-Cutter

by Robert William Service
 The sky is like an envelope,
 One of those blue official things;
 And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
 The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
 What shall we find when death gives leave
 To read--our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the ***-end of earth;
 O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that...Read more of this...

Fit the Second ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Bellman's Speech 

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face! 
He had bought a large map representing the sea, 
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A...Read more of this...

Room 4: The Painter Chap

by Robert William Service
 He gives me such a bold and curious look,
That young American across the way,
As if he'd like to put me in a book
(Fancies himself a poet, so they say.)
Ah well! He'll make no "document" of me.
I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . .

Pictures, just pictures piled from roof to floor,
Each one a bit of...Read more of this...

And Doth Not a Meeting Like This

by Thomas Moore
 And doth not a meeting like this make amends 
For all the long years I've been wandering away -- 
To see thus around me my youth's early friends, 
As smiling and kind as in that happy day? 
Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine, 
The snow -- fall of time may be stealing -- what then?...Read more of this...

Winter Stores

by Charlotte Bronte
 WE take from life one little share,
And say that this shall be
A space, redeemed from toil and care, 
From tears and sadness free. 

And, haply, Death unstrings his bow
And Sorrow stands apart,
And, for a little while, we know
The sunshine of the heart. 

Existence seems a summer eve,
Warm, soft, and full of peace;
Our free, unfettered feelings give
The soul its full...Read more of this...

Promises Promises

by Paul Muldoon
 I am stretched out under the lean-to
Of an old tobacco-shed
On a farm in North Carolina.
A cardinal sings from the dogwood
For the love of marijuana.
His song goes over my head.
There is such splendour in the grass
I might be the picture of happiness.
Yet I am utterly bereft
Of the low hills, the open-ended sky,
The wave upon wave of pasture
Rolling in, and just...Read more of this...

Morning Express

by Siegfried Sassoon
ALONG the wind-swept platform pinched and white 
The travellers stand in pools of wintry light 
Offering themselves to morn¡¯s long slanting arrows.
The train¡¯s due; porters trundle laden barrows.
The train steams in volleying resplendent clouds 5
Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about 
Scared people hurry storming the doors in crowds.
The officials seem to waken with a shout 
Resolved to hoist and plunder;...Read more of this...

In a Minor Key

by Amy Levy
 (AN ECHO FROM A LARGER LYRE.)


That was love that I had before
Years ago, when my heart was young;
Ev'ry smile was a gem you wore;
Ev'ry word was a sweet song sung.

You came--all my pulses burn'd and beat.
(O sweet wild throbs of an early day!)
You went--with the last dear sound of your feet
The light wax'd dim and the place grew grey.

And...Read more of this...

The Vagabond

by Henry Lawson
 White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier 
As we glide to the grand old sea -- 
But the song of my heart is for none to hear 
If one of them waves for me. 
A roving, roaming life is mine, 
Ever by field or flood -- 
For not far back in my father's line 
Was a dash of...Read more of this...

A Letter From the Trenches to a School Friend

by Charles Sorley
 I have not brought my Odyssey
With me here across the sea;
But you'll remember, when I say
How, when they went down Sparta way,
To sandy Sparta, long ere dawn
Horses were harnessed, rations drawn,
Equipment polished sparkling bright,
And breakfasts swallowed (as the white
Of eastern heavens turned to gold) -
The dogs barked, swift farewells were told.
The sun springs up, the horses neigh,
Crackles the whip...Read more of this...

By an Evolutionist

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 By an Evolutionist

The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said, ‘Am I your debtor?’
And the Lord–‘Not yet; but make it as clean as you can,
And then I will let you a better.’


I.
If my body come from brutes, my soul uncertain or a fable,
Why not bask amid the senses while the...Read more of this...

The Hermit of Mont-Blanc

by Mary Darby Robinson
 High, on the Solitude of Alpine Hills,
O'er-topping the grand imag'ry of Nature,
Where one eternal winter seem'd to reign;
An HERMIT'S threshold, carpetted with moss,
Diversified the Scene. Above the flakes
Of silv'ry snow, full many a modest flow'r
Peep'd through its icy veil, and blushing ope'd
Its variegated hues; The ORCHIS sweet,
The bloomy CISTUS, and the fragrant branch
Of glossy MYRTLE. In his rushy cell,
The...Read more of this...

Let Erin Remember the Days of Old

by Thomas Moore
 Let Erin remember the days of old, 
Ere her faithless sons betray'd her; 
When Malachi wore the collar of gold,
Which he won from her proud invader, 
When her kings, with standard of green unfurl'd, 
Led the Red-Branch Knights to danger!
Ere the emerald gem of the western world 
Was set in the crown of a stranger. 

On Lough Neagh's bank...Read more of this...

Her Thought And His

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky,
A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.
The gleam on the waves and the light on the land,[Pg 94]
A thrill in my heart,—and—my sweetheart's hand.
She turned from the sea with a woman's grace,
And the light fell soft on her upturned face,
And I thought of the flood-tide of...Read more of this...

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