Famous Herbage Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Two Campers In Cloud Country

by Sylvia Plath
 (Rock Lake, Canada)

In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.

No gesture of yours or mine could catch their attention,
No word make them carry water or fire the kindling
Like local trolls in the spell of a superior being.

Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens: one wants...Read more of this...

The Mountain Squatter

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Here in my mountain home, 
On rugged hills and steep, 
I sit and watch you come, 
O Riverinia Sheep! 
You come from the fertile plains 
Where saltbush (sometimes) grows, 
And flats that (when it rains) 
Will blossom like the rose. 

But when the summer sun 
Gleams down like burnished brass, 
You have to leave your run 
And hustle off...Read more of this...

Australian Scenery

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The Mountains 
A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go 
By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow 
And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below. 
A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake 
As those who sit by a dead campfire,...Read more of this...

Gone

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall, 
A statue tall, on a pillar of stone, 
Telling its story, to great and small, 
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone; 
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan, 
Feeble and faint, and languid and low, 
He lay on the desert a dying man; 
Who has gone, my friends, where...Read more of this...

Sonnet XX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XX. I' ho pien di sospir quest' aer tutto. VAUCLUSE HAS BECOME TO HIM A SCENE OF PAIN.  To every sound, save sighs, this air is mute,When from rude rocks, I view the smiling landWhere she was born, who held my life in handFrom its first bud till blossoms turn'd to...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXIX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXIX. Lieti flori e felici, e ben nate erbe. HE ENVIES EVERY SPOT THAT SHE FREQUENTS.  Gay, joyous blooms, and herbage glad with showers,O'er which my pensive fair is wont to stray!Thou plain, that listest her melodious lay,As her fair feet imprint thy waste of flowers!Ye shrubs so trim; ye...Read more of this...

The Plains

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 A land, as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow 
Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go 
Like shifting symbols of hope deferred - land where you never know. 

Land of the plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance, 
Feast or famine, or hope or...Read more of this...

Baby Tortoise

by D. H. Lawrence
 You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.

A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.

To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,

Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXIX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXIX. Quella fenestra, ove l' un sol si vede. RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE.  That window where my sun is often seenRefulgent, and the world's at morning's hours;And that, where Boreas blows, when winter lowers,And the short days reveal a clouded scene;That bench of stone where, with a pensive mien,My Laura...Read more of this...

Sussex

by Rudyard Kipling
 God gave all men all earth to love,
 But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
 Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation's birth,
 So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
 And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content,
 As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove's droned...Read more of this...

On Kileys Run

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The roving breezes come and go 
On Kiley's Run, 
The sleepy river murmurs low, 
And far away one dimly sees 
Beyond the stretch of forest trees -- 
Beyond the foothills dusk and dun -- 
The ranges sleeping in the sun 
On Kiley's Run. 

'Tis many years since first I came 
To Kiley's Run, 
More years than I would care...Read more of this...

Baby's Seaside Grave

by Victor Hugo
 ("Vieux lierre, frais gazon.") 
 
 {XXXVIII., 1840.} 


 Brown ivy old, green herbage new; 
 Soft seaweed stealing up the shingle; 
 An ancient chapel where a crew, 
 Ere sailing, in the prayer commingle. 
 A far-off forest's darkling frown, 
 Which makes the prudent start and tremble, 
 Whilst rotten nuts are rattling down, 
 And...Read more of this...

Scented Herbage of My Breast

by Walt Whitman
 SCENTED herbage of my breast, 
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, 
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, 
Perennial roots, tall leaves—O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, 
Every year shall you bloom again—out from where you retired, you shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by,...Read more of this...

Requiescat In Pace!

by Jean Ingelow
My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
  The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
  Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.
On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
  The strong terrible mountains he longed,...Read more of this...

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