Famous Hid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet XXX: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

by William Shakespeare
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many...Read more of this...

The Rival

by James Whitcomb Riley
 I so loved once, when Death came by I hid 
 Away my face, 
And all my sweetheart's tresses she undid 
 To make my hiding-place. 

The dread shade passed me thus unheeding; and 
 I turned me then 
To calm my love -- kiss down her shielding hand 
 And comfort her again. 

And lo! she answered not:...Read more of this...

Merlin I

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of...Read more of this...

Dream Song 1: Huffy Henry hid the day

by John Berryman
 Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,-”a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't...Read more of this...

Rapunzel

by Anne Sexton
 A woman 
who loves a woman 
is forever young. 
The mentor 
and the student 
feed off each other. 
Many a girl 
had an old aunt 
who locked her in the study 
to keep the boys away. 
They would play rummy 
or lie on the couch 
and touch and touch. 
Old breast against young breast... 
Let your dress fall down...Read more of this...

The Immortals

by Dorothy Parker
 I killed them, but they would not die. 
Yea! all the day and all the night 
For them I could not rest or sleep, 
Nor guard from them nor hide in flight. 

Then in my agony I turned 
And made my hands red in their gore. 
In vain - for faster than I slew 
They rose more cruel than...Read more of this...

Manners

by Elizabeth Bishop
 For a Child of 1918

My grandfather said to me
as we sat on the wagon seat,
"Be sure to remember to always
speak to everyone you meet."

We met a stranger on foot.
My grandfather's whip tapped his hat.
"Good day, sir. Good day. A fine day."
And I said it and bowed where I sat.

Then we overtook a boy we knew
with his big pet crow...Read more of this...

The Days Work

by Rudyard Kipling
 We now, held in captivity,
 Spring to our bondage nor grieve--
 See now, how it is blesseder,
 Brothers, to give than receive!
 Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
 Paying the debt that we owe;
 For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
 Will carry us where would go.
 The Ship that Found Herself.

 All the world over,...Read more of this...

God made a little gentian

by Emily Dickinson
God made a little gentian;
It tried to be a rose
And failed, and all the summer laughed.
But just before the snows
There came a purple creature
That ravished all the hill;
And summer hid her forehead,
And mockery was still.
The frosts were her condition;
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North evoked it.
"Creator! shall I bloom?"...Read more of this...

She hath not beauty, that ill-fortun'd gem

by Hafez
She hath not beauty, that ill-fortun’d gem
Wherewith may women dazzle men’s meek eyes
Ere they enslave, un-man & slaughter them.

Nor doth she vaunt afar her heart’s hid prize,
Nor with wide-lavish’d scent of hope allure
Ere men behold her, nor with rich disguise.

Nor hath she wit, that sword wherewith to smart
Delicate souls, with flashing stroke unsure
Of sharp misprise, wounding some gentle heart.

Yet not...Read more of this...

One Train May Hide Another

by Kenneth Koch
 (sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it...Read more of this...

The Despot

by Edith Nesbit
 1 The garden mould was damp and chill,
2 Winter had had his brutal will
3 Since over all the year's content
4 His devastating legions went. 

5 Then Spring's bright banners came: there woke
6 Millions of little growing folk
7 Who thrilled to know the winter done,
8 Gave thanks, and strove towards the sun. 

9 Not so the elect; reserved, and slow
10...Read more of this...

By The Sea

by Christina Rossetti
 Why does the sea moan evermore?
Shut out from heaven it makes its moan,
It frets against the boundary shore;
All earth's full rivers cannot fill
The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.

Sheer miracles of loveliness
Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:
Anemones, salt, passionless,
Blow flower-like; just enough alive
To blow and multiply and thrive.

Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike,
Encrusted live things argus-eyed,
All fair alike,...Read more of this...

Astrophel and Stella: XX

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly!
See there that boy, that murd'ring boy, I say,
Who, like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey.
So tyrant he no fitter place could spy,
Nor so fair level in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye;
There himself with his shot...Read more of this...

The Stolen Child

by William Butler Yeats
 Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you
can understand. 

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The...Read more of this...

Berck-Plage

by Sylvia Plath
(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The...Read more of this...

Danger

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 With what a childish and short-sighted sense 
Fear seeks for safety; recons up the days 
Of danger and escape, the hours and ways 
Of death; it breathless flies the pestilence; 
It walls itself in towers of defence; 
By land, by sea, against the storm it lays 
Down barriers; then, comforted, it says: 
"This spot, this hour is safe." Oh,...Read more of this...

Psalm 85

by John Milton
 Thy Land to favour graciously
Thou hast not Lord been slack,
Thou hast from hard Captivity
Returned Jacob back.
Th' iniquity thou didst forgive
That wrought thy people woe,
And all their Sin, that did thee grieve
Hast hid where none shall know.
Thine anger all thou hadst remov'd,
And calmly didst return 
From thy *fierce wrath which we had prov'd *Heb. The burning
Far worse then fire to...Read more of this...

Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

by William Shakespeare
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan th' expense of many...Read more of this...

Green Thumb

by Philip Levine
 Shake out my pockets! Harken to the call 
Of that calm voice that makes no sound at all! 
Take of me all you can; my average weight 
May make amends for this, my low estate. 
But do not shake, Green Thumb, as once you did 
My heart and liver, or my prostate bid 
Good Morning to -- leave it,...Read more of this...

Phillis Or the Progress of Love

by Jonathan Swift
 Desponding Phillis was endu'd 
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, 
She trembled when a Man drew near; 
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: 
If o'er against her you were plac't 
She durst not look above your Wa[i]st; 
She'd rather take you to her Bed 
Than let you see her dress her Head; 
In Church you heard her thro'...Read more of this...

A Thought or Two on Reading Pomfrets

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring, 
A pretty kind of--sort of--kind of thing, 
Not much a verse, and poem none at all, 
Yet, as they say, extremely natural. 
And yet I know not. There's an art in pies, 
In raising crusts as well as galleries; 
And he's the poet, more or less, who knows 
The charm that...Read more of this...

My Madonna

by Robert W Service
I haled me a woman from the street, 
Shameless, but, oh, so fair! 
I bade her sit in the model's seat 
And I painted her sitting there. 

I hid all trace of her heart unclean; 
I painted a babe at her breast; 
I painted her as she might have been 
If the Worst had been the Best. 

She laughed at...Read more of this...

The Wild Honey-Suckle

by Philip Freneau
 Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet;
...No roving foot shall crush thee here,
...No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the gaurdian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
...Thus quietly thy summer goes,
...Thy days declinging to...Read more of this...

The Skeleton

by G K Chesterton
 Chattering finch and water-fly 
Are not merrier than I; 
Here among the flowers I lie 
Laughing everlastingly. 
No; I may not tell the best; 
Surely, friends, I might have guessed 
Death was but the good King's jest, 
It was hid so carefully....Read more of this...

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