Famous Greener Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Bay In Anglesey

...
Too lazy, almost, to sink and lift
Round low peninsulas pink with thrift.

The water, enlarging shells and sand,
Grows greener emerald out from land

And brown over shadowy shelves below
The waving forests of seaweed show.

Here at my feet in the short cliff grass
Are shells, dried bladderwrack, broken glass,

Pale blue squills and yellow rock roses.
The next low ridge that we climb discloses

One more field for the sheep to graze
While, scarcely seen on this hottest of days...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John


Al Aaraaf

...half I wish'd to be again of men."

"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness- and passionate love."

"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy- but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurl'd-
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart.
And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sw...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

Autumn Feelings

...FLOURISH greener, as ye clamber,
Oh ye leaves, to seek my chamber,

Up the trellis'd vine on high!
May ye swell, twin-berries tender,
Juicier far,--and with more splendour

Ripen, and more speedily!
O'er ye broods the sun at even
As he sinks to rest, and heaven

Softly breathes into your ear
All its fertilising fullness,
While the moon's refreshing coolness,

Magic-l...Read more of this...
by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

By the Grey Gulf-water

...emus pass 
Silent and slow, with their dead demeanour; 
Over the dead man's graves the grass 
Maybe is waving a trifle greener. 
Down in the world where men toil and spin 
Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her; 
Only the dead men her smiles can win 
In the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water. 

For the strength of man is an insect's strength 
In the face of that mighty plain and river, 
And the life of a man is a moment's length 
To the life of the stream that w...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Celebration

...And every prodigy of green – 
whether it's ferns or lichens or needles
or impatient points of buds on spindly bushes – 
greener than ever before. And the way the conifers
hold new cones to the light for the blessing,
a festive right, and sing the oceanic chant the wind
transcribes for them!
A day that shines in the cold
like a first-prize brass band swinging along
the street
of a coal-dusty village, wholly at odds
with the claims of reasonable gloom....Read more of this...
by Levertov, Denise


Ceremonies For Candlemas Eve

...Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter-day,
Or Easter's eve appear.

Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.

When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,
To honour Wh...Read more of this...
by Herrick, Robert

Directions

...ully against 
ts breast made of humus and brambles
how we will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.

Still, let me know before you set out.
Come knock on my door
and I will walk with you as far as the garden 
with one hand on your shoulder.
I will even watch...Read more of this...
by Collins, Billy

In Arthurs House

...fair a feast thy kin
Have dight for us and might we win
Some tale of thee in Tyrfing's praise,
Some deed he wrought in greener days,
This were a blithesome hour indeed."

"Sir," said the elder, "little need
To pray me hereof. Please ye dine
And drink a cup of woodman's wine,
Surely meantime some tale shall stir
Within my heart of days that were."

Then to their meat they gat and there
Feasted amid the woodland fair
The fairest folk of all the land.
Ah me when first the Queen...Read more of this...
by Morris, William

Mandalay

...y understand?
 Beefy face an' grubby 'and --
 Law! wot do they understand?
 I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
 On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
 On the road to Mandalay,
 Where the old Flotilla lay,
 W...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

November Evening

...ished and happed through the long months of their sleeping. 

Silent the woods are and gray; but the firs than ever are greener,
Nipped by the frost till the tang of their loosened balsam is keener;
And one little wind in their boughs, eerily swaying and swinging,
Very soft and low, like a wandering minstrel is singing. 

Beautiful is the year, but not as the springlike maiden
Garlanded with her hopes­rather the woman laden
With wealth of joy and grief, worthily won through l...Read more of this...
by Montgomery, Lucy Maud

Poem On His Birthday

...faith
That ever was since the world was said,
 Spins its morning of praise,

 I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
 Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
 More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
 Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
 As I sail out to die....Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

Promise This -- When You be Dying --

...uce the Sun
Longest on Your South, to linger,
Largest Dews of Morn

To demand, in Your low favor
Lest the Jealous Grass
Greener lean -- Or fonder cluster
Round some other face --

Mine to supplicate Madonna --
If Madonna be
Could behold so far a Creature --
Christ -- omitted -- Me --

Just to follow Your dear future --
Ne'er so far behind --
For My Heaven --
Had I not been
Most enough -- denied?...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Robin Hood A Child

...e stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.

The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.

Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet head
To keep such a day within,
Nor welcome up from his sick bed
Your uncle Gamelyn."

And Robin leaped, and thought so too;
And so he has grasped ...Read more of this...
by Hunt, James Henry Leigh

Sonnet XLVII

...ass=iname>Dacre.  Now of my life each gay and greener yearPass'd by, and cooler grew each hour the flameWith which I burn'd: and to that point we cameWhence life descends, as to its end more near;Now 'gan my lovely foe each virtuous fearGently to lay aside, as safe from blame;Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

Spring in the South

...hills a tender haze is drifted,
Full to the brim the yellow river flows.
Dark cypress boughs with vivid jewels glisten,
Greener than emeralds shining in the sun.
Who has wrought the magic? Listen, sweetheart, listen!
The mocking-bird is singing Spring has begun.

Hark, in his song no tremor of misgiving!
All of his heart he pours into his lay,--
"Love, love, love, and pure delight of living:
Winter is forgotten: here's a happy day!"
Fair in your face I read the flowery presag...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

The City Bushman

...It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went, 
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent; 
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push, 
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush; 
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade is not', 
And you mentioned it was dusty -- `all was dry and all was hot'. 

True, the bush `hath moods and changes' -- an...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

The End Of March

...ouse, 
my crypto-dream-house, that crooked box 
set up on pilings, shingled green, 
a sort of artichoke of a house, but greener 
(boiled with bicarbonate of soda?), 
protected from spring tides by a palisade 
of--are they railroad ties? 
(Many things about this place are dubious.) 
I'd like to retire there and do nothing, 
or nothing much, forever, in two bare rooms: 
look through binoculars, read boring books, 
old, long, long books, and write down useless notes, 
talk to my...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth

The Siege of Corinth

...am may be seen below, 
On the line that it left long ages ago: 
A smooth short space of yellow sand 
Between it and the greener land. 

He wander'd on, along the beach, 
Till within the range of a carbine's reach 
Of the leaguer'd wall; but they saw him not, 
Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot, 
Did traitors lurk in the Christian's hold? 
Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts wax'd cold, 
I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall 
There flash'd no fire, and...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Thompsons Lunch Room -- Grand Central Station

...ugh the wavering uncertainty of steam.
Vitreous-white of glasses with green reflections,
Ice-green carboys, shifting -- greener, bluer -- with the jar of 
moving water.
Jagged green-white bowls of pressed glass
Rearing snow-peaks of chipped sugar
Above the lighthouse-shaped castors
Of grey pepper and grey-white salt.
Grey-white placards: "Oyster Stew, Cornbeef Hash, Frankfurters":
Marble slabs veined with words in meandering lines.
Dropping on the white counter like horn note...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

We Aint Got No Money Honey But We Got Rain

...expand in the warmth:
PANG!PANG!PANG!
and everybody got up and looked outside
and there were all the lawns
still soaked
greener than green will ever
be
and there were birds
on the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
they hadn't eaten decently 
for 7 days and 7 nights
and they were weary of 
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them 
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrow...Read more of this...
by Bukowski, Charles

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