Famous Herb Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet CCXXVI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CCXXVI. Aspro core e selvaggio, e cruda voglia. HOPE ALONE SUPPORTS HIM IN HIS MISERY.  Hard heart and cold, a stern will past belief,In angel form of gentle sweet allure;If thus her practised rigour long endure,O'er me her triumph will be poor and brief.For when or spring, or die, flower,...Read more of this...

Ah Necromancy Sweet!

by Emily Dickinson
 Ah, Necromancy Sweet!
Ah, Wizard erudite!
Teach me the skill,

That I instil the pain
Surgeons assuage in vain,
Nor Herb of all the plain
Can Heal!...Read more of this...

By the Earths Corpse

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

 "O Lord, why grievest Thou? - 
 Since Life has ceased to be 
 Upon this globe, now cold 
 As lunar land and sea, 
And humankind, and fowl, and fur 
 Are gone eternally, 
All is the same to Thee as ere 
 They knew mortality." 

II 

"O Time," replied the Lord, 
 "Thou read'st me...Read more of this...

Inscription 07 - For A Tablet On The Banks Of A Stream

by Robert Southey
 Stranger! awhile upon this mossy bank
Recline thee. If the Sun rides high, the breeze,
That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet,
Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound
Of running waters soothe thee. Mark how clear
It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold
Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed
Yon glossy insect, on the sand below
How the swift shadow flies. The...Read more of this...

The Talking Oak

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Once more the gate behind me falls; 
Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 
That stand within the chace. 

Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
Beneath its drift of smoke; 
And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began, 
Ere that, which in me burn'd, 
The love, that...Read more of this...

As Consequent Etc

by Walt Whitman
 AS consequent from store of summer rains, 
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing, 
Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations, 
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea, 
Songs of continued years I sing.

Life’s ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend, 
With the old streams of death.) 

Some threading Ohio’s farm-fields or the woods, 
Some down Colorado’s cañons from sources of...Read more of this...

Thoughts in a Garden

by Andrew Marvell
 HOW vainly men themselves amaze 
To win the palm, the oak, or bays, 
And their uncessant labours see 
Crown'd from some single herb or tree, 
Whose short and narrow-verged shade 
Does prudently their toils upbraid; 
While all the flowers and trees do close 
To weave the garlands of repose! 

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, 
And Innocence thy...Read more of this...

Song For The Last Act

by Louise Bogan
 Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.
Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I...Read more of this...

A Terre

by Wilfred Owen
 (Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)


Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me -- brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly -- no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my...Read more of this...

Sonnet XII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XII. Mai non fu' in parte ove sì chiar' vedessi. VAUCLUSE.  Nowhere before could I so well have seenHer whom my soul most craves since lost to view;Nowhere in so great freedom could have beenBreathing my amorous lays 'neath skies so blue;Never with depths of shade so calm and greenRead more of this...

Sonnet CLXXXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXXII. Tra quantunque leggiadre donne e belle. ALL NATURE WOULD BE IN DARKNESS WERE SHE, ITS SUN, TO PERISH.  Where'er she moves, whatever dames among,Beauteous or graceful, matchless she below.With her fair face she makes all others showDim, as the day's bright orb night's starry throng.And Love still whispers, with...Read more of this...

Amphion

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 MY father left a park to me, 
But it is wild and barren, 
A garden too with scarce a tree, 
And waster than a warren: 
Yet say the neighbours when they call, 
It is not bad but good land, 
And in it is the germ of all 
That grows within the woodland. 

O had I lived when song was...Read more of this...

Spring Offensive

by Wilfred Owen
 Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept. But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.

Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and...Read more of this...

Praise (I)

by George Herbert
 To write a verse or two is all the praise
That I can raise: 
Mend my estate in any ways, 
Thou shalt have more.

I go to Church; help me to wings, and I
Will thither fly; 
Or, if I mount unto the sky, 
I will do more.

Man is all weakness; there is no such thing
As Prince or King: 
His arm is...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXIII. Rapido fiume che d' alpestra vena. JOURNEYING ALONG THE RHONE TO AVIGNON, PETRARCH BIDS THE RIVER KISS LAURA'S HAND, AS IT WILL ARRIVE AT HER DWELLING BEFORE HIM.  Impetuous flood, that from the Alps' rude head,Eating around thee, dost thy name obtain;[V]Anxious like me both night and...Read more of this...

Æstivation

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 An Unpublished Poem, by my late Latin Tutor. 




In candent ire the solar splendor flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes. 

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from thc crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from...Read more of this...

The Garden

by Louise Gluck
 How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes;
And their uncessant Labours see
Crown'd from some single Herb or Tree,
Whose short and narrow verged Shade
Does prudently their Toyles upbraid;
While all Flow'rs and all Trees do close
To weave the Garlands of repose.

Fair quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy Sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busie...Read more of this...

Il Penseroso

by John Milton
 Hence, vain deluding Joys,
............The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested
............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage...Read more of this...

Ode for the Keats Centenary

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb...Read more of this...

Prometheus Unbound: Act I (excerpt)

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 SCENE.--A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. Prometheus is discovered bound to the Precipice. Panthea and Ione areseated at his feet. Time, night. During the Scene, morning slowly breaks.
Prometheus.
Monarch of Gods and Dæmons, and all Spirits
But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth
Made...Read more of this...

To Thomas Butts

by William Blake
 TO my friend Butts I write 
My first vision of light, 
On the yellow sands sitting. 
The sun was emitting 
His glorious beams 
From Heaven’s high streams. 
Over sea, over land, 
My eyes did expand 
Into regions of air, 
Away from all care; 
Into regions of fire, 
Remote from desire; 
The light of the morning 
Heaven’s mountains adorning: 
In...Read more of this...

Field Thistle

by Judith Skillman
 Herb and spine,
the flat-fisted dream
of stars and dew
formed when he walked
with his telescope
through grasses spotted
by the spit bug.

A raucous noise,
the dawn of great beauty
and he with his tripod
matting the grasses as he walked.

I never saw him dead
on a bed of white down.
Never heard past
the death rattle, 
and so, for me, he lives 
there in the ragged, noxious weeds
that make...Read more of this...

The Times Are Tidy

by Sylvia Plath
 Unlucky the hero born
In this province of the stuck record
Where the most watchful cooks go jobless
And the mayor's rôtisserie turns
Round of its own accord.

There's no career in the venture
Of riding against the lizard,
Himself withered these latter-days
To leaf-size from lack of action:
History's beaten the hazard.

The last crone got burnt up
More than eight decades back
With the love-hot herb, the talking cat,
But...Read more of this...

Corinnas Going A-Maying

by Robert Herrick
 Get up, get up for shame! the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air!
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangled herb and tree.
Each flower has wept and bowed toward the east
Above an hour since,—yet you not dressed;
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 95. By night we lingerd on the lawn

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 By night we linger'd on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth; and o'er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;
And calm that let the tapers burn
Unwavering: not a cricket chirr'd:
The brook alone far-off was heard,
And on the board the fluttering urn:
And bats went round in fragrant skies,
And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes
That haunt the dusk,...Read more of this...

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