Famous Halts Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Flaâneur

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 I love all sights of earth and skies, 
From flowers that glow to stars that shine; 
The comet and the penny show, 
All curious things, above, below, 
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: 
I claim the Christian Pagan's line, 
Humani nihil, -- even so, -- 
And is not human life divine? 
When soft the western breezes blow, 
And...Read more of this...

Far In a Western Brookland

by A E Housman
 Far in a western brookland 
That bred me long ago 
The poplars stand and tremble 
By pools I used to know. 

There, in the windless night-time, 
The wanderer, marvelling why, 
Halts on the bridge to hearken 
How soft the poplars sigh. 

He hears: no more remembered 
In fields where I was known, 
Here I lie down in London 
And...Read more of this...

A Serenade At The Villa

by Robert Browning
 I.

That was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead and so was light.

II.

Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm;
When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
You heard music; that was I.

III.

Earth turned in her sleep...Read more of this...

Not Love Perhaps

by A S J Tessimond
 This is not Love, perhaps, 
Love that lays down its life, 
that many waters cannot quench, 
nor the floods drown, 
But something written in lighter ink, 
said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.

A need, at times, to be together and talk, 
And then the finding we can walk 
More firmly through dark narrow places, 
And meet...Read more of this...

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

by Dylan Thomas
 Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright...Read more of this...

The Hostage

by Friedrich von Schiller
 The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."

"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the...Read more of this...

A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor

by Ogden Nash
 The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly bum from an ancient...Read more of this...

Vacant Lot With Pokeweed

by Amy Clampitt
 Tufts, follicles, grubstake
biennial rosettes, a low-
life beach-blond scruff of
couch grass: notwithstanding
the interglinting dregs

of wholesale upheaval and
dismemberment, weeds do not
hesitate, the wheeling
rise of the ailanthus halts
at nothing—and look! here's

a pokeweed, sprung up from seed
dropped by some vagrant, that's
seized a foothold: a magenta-
girdered bower, gazebo twirls
of blossom rounding into

raw-buttoned, garnet-rodded
fruit one more wayfarer
perhaps may salvage from
the season's frittering,
the annual wreckage....Read more of this...

Juggling Jerry

by George Meredith
 Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.

We've travelled times to this old common:
Often...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 Winter Scene

by Bliss Carman
 I
The rutted roads are all like iron; skies
Are keen and brilliant; only the oak-leaves cling
In the bare woods, or the hardy bitter-sweet;
Drivers have put their sheepskin jackets on;
And all the ponds are sealed with sheeted ice
That rings with stroke of skate and hockey-stick,
Or in the twilight cracks with running whoop.
Bring in the logs of oak and hickory,
And make an...Read more of this...

Forest Of Europe

by Derek Walcott
 The last leaves fell like notes from a piano
and left their ovals echoing in the ear;
with gawky music stands, the winter forest
looks like an empty orchestra, its lines
ruled on these scattered manuscripts of snow.

The inlaid copper laurel of an oak
shines though the brown-bricked glass above your head
as bright as whisky, while the wintry breath
of lines from Mandelstam, which you...Read more of this...

The Two Guides Of Life - The Sublime And The Beautiful

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Two genii are there, from thy birth through weary life to guide thee;
Ah, happy when, united both, they stand to aid beside thee?
With gleesome play to cheer the path, the one comes blithe with beauty,
And lighter, leaning on her arm, the destiny and duty.
With jest and sweet discourse she goes unto the rock sublime,
Where halts above the eternal sea...Read more of this...

Their Barricade against the Sky

by Emily Dickinson
 Their Barricade against the Sky
The martial Trees withdraw
And with a Flag at every turn
Their Armies are no more.

What Russet Halts in Nature's March
They indicate or cause
An inference of Mexico
Effaces the Surmise --

Recurrent to the After Mind
That Massacre of Air --
The Wound that was not Wound nor Scar
But Holidays of War...Read more of this...

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