Famous Green Poems by Famous Poets

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

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As Through the Wild Green Hills of Wyre

by A E Housman
 As through the wild green hills of Wyre 
The train ran, changing sky and shire, 
And far behind, a fading crest, 
Low in the forsaken west 
Sank the high-reared head of Clee, 
My hand lay empty on my knee. 
Aching on my knee it lay: 
That morning half a shire away 
So many an honest fellow's fist 
Had well-nigh...Read more of this...

The Green Bowl

by Amy Lowell
 This little bowl is like a mossy pool
In a Spring wood, where dogtooth violets grow
Nodding in chequered sunshine of the trees;
A quiet place, still, with the sound of birds,
Where, though unseen, is heard the endless song
And murmur of the never resting sea.
'T was winter, Roger, when you made this cup,
But coming Spring guided your eager hand
And round the edge...Read more of this...

Who Goes Amid the Green Wood

by James Joyce
 Who goes amid the green wood 
With springtide all adorning her? 
Who goes amid the merry green wood 
To make it merrier? 

Who passes in the sunlight 
By ways that know the light footfall? 
Who passes in the sweet sunlight 
With mien so virginal? 

The ways of all the woodland 
Gleam with a soft and golden fire -- -...Read more of this...

String Bass

by Adrian Green
 Some like to dominate,
others caress
a voluptuous rhythm
on pliant strings.

This pulse drives life
through wanton counterpoint,
the heart and harmony
of things....Read more of this...

Green Fields

by W S Merwin
 By this part of the century few are left who believe
 in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
 are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
 and there are pets for the children but the...Read more of this...

up into the silence the green

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
up into the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it

you will(kiss me)go

out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it

(kiss me)you will go

on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it

you will go(kiss me

down into your memory and
a memory and memory

i)kiss me,(will go)

...Read more of this...

On earth's green carpet many sleepers lie,

by Omar Khayyam
On earth's green carpet many sleepers lie,
And hid beneath it others I descry,
And others, not yet come, or passed away,
People the desert of Nonentity!...Read more of this...

In The Green And Gallant Spring

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 IN the green and gallant Spring,
Love and the lyre I thought to sing,
And kisses sweet to give and take
By the flowery hawthorn brake.

Now is russet Autumn here,
Death and the grave and winter drear,
And I must ponder here aloof
While the rain is on the roof....Read more of this...

32. Song—Green Grow the Rashes

by Robert Burns
 Chor.—Green grow the rashes, O;
 Green grow the rashes, O;
The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,
 Are spent amang the lasses, O.


THERE’S nought but care on ev’ry han’,
 In ev’ry hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o’ man,
 An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O.
 Green grow, &c.


The war’ly race may riches chase,
 An’ riches still may fly...Read more of this...

The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower

by Dylan Thomas
 The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb...Read more of this...

The Echoing Green

by William Blake
 The Sun does arise,
And make happy the skies.
The merry bells ring,
To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells cheerful sound.
While our sports shall be seen
On the Echoing Green.

Old John, with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak,
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say,
Such such were the...Read more of this...

Jueju, No. 3 of 4 (Two Golden Orioles Sing in the Green Willows)

by Du Fu
 Two (measure word) golden orioles sing green willow One row white egrets on blue sky Window contain west mountain thousand autumn snow Door moor east Wu ten thousand li boat Two golden orioles sing in the green willows, A row of white egrets against the blue sky. The window frames the western hills' snow of...Read more of this...

Camps of Green

by Walt Whitman
 NOT alone those camps of white, O soldiers, 
When, as order’d forward, after a long march, 
Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessen’d, we halted for the night; 
Some of us so fatigued, carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping asleep in our tracks; 
Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up began to sparkle;
Outposts of pickets...Read more of this...

These Green-Going-to-Yellow

by Marvin Bell
 This year,
I'm raising the emotional ante,
putting my face
in the leaves to be stepped on,
seeing myself among them, that is;
that is, likening
leaf-vein to artery, leaf to flesh,
the passage of a leaf in autumn
to the passage of autumn,
branch-tip and winter spaces
to possibilities, and possibility
to God. Even on East 61st Street
in the blowzy city of New York,
someone has planted a gingko
because it...Read more of this...

Small Is The Trust When Love Is Green

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 SMALL is the trust when love is green
In sap of early years;
A little thing steps in between
And kisses turn to tears.

Awhile - and see how love be grown
In loveliness and power!
Awhile, it loves the sweets alone,
But next it loves the sour.

A little love is none at all
That wanders or that fears;
A hearty love dwells still at call
To kisses or...Read more of this...

Pink Champagne (for Digby Fairweather)

by Adrian Green
 Not blues in twelve
but there is joy
and pink champagne,

the maker’s music
trading eights
in syncopated synergy
from Dixieland to Rock ‘n’ Roll,

and here the cornet-master
leads in tones
a trumpet cannot blow.

The sidemen nod their harmonies,
engrossed;
their music coursing
through an energy of swing;

piano-player’s fingers
dancing round the tune;
a lover’s touch
caressing melody from bass;
and sax, deep throated tenor
shouting counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive ricochets.

Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and...Read more of this...

Lines Written at Thorp Green

by Anne Bronte
 That summer sun, whose genial glow
Now cheers my drooping spirit so
Must cold and distant be,
And only light our northern clime
With feeble ray, before the time
I long so much to see. 
And this soft whispering breeze that now
So gently cools my fevered brow,
This too, alas, must turn --
To a wild blast whose icy dart
Pierces and chills me to the heart,
Before...Read more of this...

The Village Green

by Jane Taylor
 On the cheerful village green, 
Skirted round with houses small,
All the boys and girls are seen,
Playing there with hoop and ball. 

Now they frolic hand in hand,
Making many a merry chain; 
Then they form a warlike band,
Marching o'er the level plain. 

Now ascends the worsted ball, 
High it rises in the air, 
Or against the cottage wall, 
Up and...Read more of this...

538. Song—Now Spring has clad the grove in green

by Robert Burns
 NOW spring has clad the grove in green,
 And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers;
The furrow’d, waving corn is seen
 Rejoice in fostering showers.
While ilka thing in nature join
 Their sorrows to forego,
O why thus all alone are mine
 The weary steps o’ woe!


The trout in yonder wimpling burn
 That glides, a silver dart,
And, safe beneath the shady thorn,
 Defies...Read more of this...

A Green Stream

by Wang Wei
I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers, 
Borne by the channel of a green stream, 
Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains 
On a journey of less than thirty miles.... 
Rapids hum over heaped rocks; 
But where light grows dim in the thick pines, 
The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns 
And weeds are lush along the banks....Read more of this...

The Evening Sky was as Green as Jade

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The evening sky was as green as Jade,
      As Emerald turf by Lotus lake,
   Behind the Kafila far she strayed,
      (The Pearls are lost if the Necklace break!)

   A lingering freshness touched the air
      From palm-trees, clustered around...Read more of this...

The Color of the Grave is Green

by Emily Dickinson
 The Color of the Grave is Green --
The Outer Grave -- I mean --
You would not know it from the Field --
Except it own a Stone --

To help the fond -- to find it --
Too infinite asleep
To stop and tell them where it is --
But just a Daisy -- deep --

The Color of the Grave is white --
The outer...Read more of this...

There was a young person in green

by Edward Lear
There was a young person in green,Who seldom was fit to be seen;She wore a long shawl, over bonnet and all,Which enveloped that person in green. ...Read more of this...

White and Green

by Amy Lowell
 Hey! My daffodil-crowned,
Slim and without sandals!
As the sudden spurt of flame upon darkness
So my eyeballs are startled with you,
Supple-limbed youth among the fruit-trees,
Light runner through tasselled orchards.
You are an almond flower unsheathed
Leaping and flickering between the budded branches....Read more of this...

The Tenor Man

by Adrian Green
 Pottering around the stage,
a hyperactive ancient in his own backyard -
independent of the band it seems.

Disrhythmic shuffling of ashtray,
beer, a pack of cigarettes,
adjusting microphones,

then in the middle eight
he draws, exhales, and catches breath,
stoops forward to the mouthpiece

and blows,
  a tumbling counterpoint,
scales soaring from his horn.

The melody flows

until the break,
and then he shoulders arms,
a truce between the music and...Read more of this...

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