Famous High Noon Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous High Noon poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous high noon poems. These examples illustrate what a famous high noon poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Dyke, Henry Van
...ars and the moon;
But who will give praise to the fulness of light,
And sing us a song of the glory of noon?
Oh, the high noon, the clear noon,
The noon with golden crest;
When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns
With his face to the way of the west!
How swiftly he rose in the dawn of his strength;
How slowly he crept as the morning wore by;
Ah, steep was the climbing that led him at length
To the height of his throne in the wide summer sky.
Oh, the lo...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...sake who died?
Nay, for ours who live,
How shall we forgive
Thee, then, on our side?
We whose right to light
Heaven's high noon denies,
Whom the blind beams smite
That for you shine bright,
And but burn our eyes,
With what dreams of beams
Shall we build up day,
At what sourceless streams
Seek to drink in dreams
Ere they pass away?
In what street shall meet,
At what market-place,
Your feet and our feet,
With one goal to greet,
Having run one race?
What one hope shall ope
...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...ice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!"
High noon behind the tamarisks -- the sun is hot above us --
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner -- those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!
Youth was ch...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...Time’s finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! And yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than early death.
We cannot count on raveled threads of age
Whereof to weave a fabric. We must use
The ...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...To the Williamson Brothers
HIGH noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue
asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors.
Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching
play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes.
Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea.
From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks,
passers-by go in a breath to be witnesses of
lar...Read more of this...
by
McKay, Claude
...At night the wide and level stretch of wold,
Which at high noon had basked in quiet gold,
Far as the eye could see was ghostly white;
Dark was the night save for the snow's weird light.
I drew the shades far down, crept into bed;
Hearing the cold wind moaning overhead
Through the sad pines, my soul, catching its pain,
Went sorrowing with it across the plain.
At dawn, behold! the pall of night w...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climbest,
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fallest.
Moon, that now meetest the orient sun, now flyest,
With the fixed Stars, fixed in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wandering Fires, that move
In mystick dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness called up light.
Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, t...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...BR>In the short days, the air thrills cold and keen:The stone where, at high noon, her seat has been,Pensive and parleying with herself alone:Haunts where her bright form has its shadow thrown,Or trod her fairy foot the carpet green:The cruel spot where first Love spoil'd my rest,And the new season wh...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...POLICEMAN in front of a bank 3 A.M. … lonely.
Policeman State and Madison … high noon … mobs … cars … parcels … lonely.
Woman in suburbs … keeping night watch on a sleeping typhoid patient … only a clock to talk to … lonesome.
Woman selling gloves … bargain day department store … furious crazy-work of many hands slipping in and out of gloves … lonesome....Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...little shoals of nine or ten
And the Mavis and Blackbird merrily sing,
Making the Den with their notes to ring;
From high noon till sunset at night,
Filling the visitor's heart with delight.
Tis most lovely to see the trees arched overhead,
And the little rivulet rolling o'er its pebbly bed,
Ane near by is an old Meal Mill;
Likewise an old Church and Churchyard where the dead lie still.
The Den is always cool in the summer time,
Because it is so closely shaded ...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...ailed aught in hospitality.
In talk and sport they whiled away
The morning of that summer day;
But at high noon a courier light
Held secret parley with the knight,
Whose moody aspect soon declared
That evil were the news he heard.
Deep thought seemed toiling in his head;
Yet was the evening banquet made
Ere he assembled round the flame
His mother, Douglas, and the Graeme,
And Ellen too; then cast around
H...Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the d...Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,
And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious girth;
But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread,
And bathed in the light returning, she cried aloud and said:
"All hail, O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things!
Hail, following Night, a...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
..., bathed in Dawn of living red,
Majestic frowned the mountain head,
"Tell me my fault," was all he said.
When, at high Noon, the blazing sky
Scorched in his head each haggard eye,
Then keenest rose his weary cry.
And when at Eve the unpitying sun
Smiled grimly on the solemn fun,
"Alack," he sighed, "what HAVE I done?"
But saddest, darkest was the sight,
When the cold grasp of leaden Night
Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.
Tortured, unaided, and alon...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...fishers; and he arose
Barking. We trampled up and down with blows
Of sword and brazen battle-axe, while day
Gave to high noon and noon to night gave way;
And when he knew the sword of Manannan
Amid the shades of night, he changed and ran
Through many shapes; I lunged at the smooth throat
Of a great eel; it changed, and I but smote
A fir-tree roaring in its leafless top;
And thereupon I drew the livid chop
Of a drowned dripping body to my breast;
Horror from horror grew; b...Read more of this...
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