Famous Hummed Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Family

...cool pasture
watching for the bull
all the way to the barn

or if you came in the afternoon
the pasture glared and hummed the dark leaves smelled
from beside the water and the barn was drunk
by the time you got to it

to climb on the beams
to dive into the distant hay
will you believe
the names of the farmers' children...Read more of this...
by Merwin, W S


A Retrospect Of Humidity

...All the air conditioners now slacken
their hummed carrier wave. Once again
we've served our three months with remissions
in the steam and dry iron of this seaboard.
In jellied glare, through the nettle-rash season
we've watched the sky's fermenting laundry
portend downpours. Some came, and steamed away,
and we were clutched back into the rancid
saline midnights of orifice weather,
to damp grittiness ...Read more of this...
by Murray, Les

Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

...o catch at every shred of wool
To draw the new light closer, catch and cling
Less blindly. In my ears, my father's word
Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells,
`Love, love, my child.' She, black there with my grief,
Might feel my love -- she was his sister once, 
I clung to her. A moment, she seemed moved,
Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling,
And drew me feebly through the hall into
The room she sate in.
There, with some strange spasm
Of pain and passion, she wrun...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

Beloved Name

...e chant of distant choirs, the morning's sigh, 
 Which erst inspired the fabled Memnon's frame,— 
 The melodies that, hummed, so trembling die,— 
 The sweetest gems that 'mid thought's treasures lie, 
 Have naught of sweetness that can match HER NAME! 
 
 Low be its utterance, like a prayer divine, 
 Yet in each warbled song be heard the sound; 
 Be it the light in darksome fanes to shine, 
 The sacred word which at some hidden shrine, 
 The selfsame voice forever m...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza

...nding made him whole.
Then he saw the Lord in a chariot blue.
The gorgeous stallions whinnied and flew.
The iron wheels hummed an old hymn-tune
And crunched in thunder over the moon.
And Samson shouted to the sky:
"My Lord, my Lord is riding high."

Like a steed, he pawed the gates with his hoof.
He rattled the gates like rocks on the roof,
And danced in the night
On the mountain-top,
Danced in the deep of the night:
The Judge, the holy Nazarite,
Whom ropes and chains could n...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel


In The Kalahari Desert

...ll of home:

a glinting beetle on its back
struggled like an orchestra

with Beethoven. The Hallé,
Isabella thought and hummed.

Makololo, their Zulu guide,
puzzled out the Bible, replacing

words he didn't know with Manchester.
Spikenard, alabaster, Leviticus,

were Manchester and Manchester.
His head reminded Mrs. Price

of her old pomander stuck with cloves,
forgotten in some pungent tallboy.

The dogs drank under the wagon
with a far away clip-clopping sound,

and Roger s...Read more of this...
by Raine, Craig

In The New Sun

...carp 
iced in the new sun, odor 
of first love, of childhood, 
the fingers held to the nose, 
or hours while the clock hummed. 

The fat woman in the orange smock 
places tiny greens at mouth 
and tail as though she remembered 
or yearned instead for forests, deep floors 
of needles, and the hushed breath. 

* 

Blue nosed cannisters 
as fat as barrels silently 
slipping by. "Nitro," he says. 
On the roof he shows me 
where Reuban lay down 
to ****-off and never woke. 
"We'r...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

It will be Summer -- eventually

...bending many a year --
Will sway with purple load --
The Bees -- will not despise the tune --
Their Forefathers -- have hummed --

The Wild Rose -- redden in the Bog --
The Aster -- on the Hill
Her everlasting fashion -- set --
And Covenant Gentians -- frill --

Till Summer folds her miracle --
As Women -- do -- their Gown --
Of Priests -- adjust the Symbols --
When Sacrament -- is done --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Los Angeles 1954

...must be
 Like a pool of water in a cave that sometimes
 She steps into...
Later, as I drove him back into the city,
He hummed a Bessie Smith tune he'd sing
For her, but he didn't say a word until
We stopped at last back at the club. He stepped
slowly out of the back
Of the Cadillac, and reaching to shake my hand
Through the open driver's window, said,
My man, Jordan... Goodbye....Read more of this...
by John, David St

Maud Muller

...his heart, the Judge rode on, 
And Maud was left in the field alone. 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
When he hummed in court an old love-tune; 

And the young girl mused beside the well 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go; 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 

O...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Pickthorn Manor

...Strolling so She walked, 
and he beside her. In a nook
Where a stone seat withdrew beneath low boughs, Full-blossomed, 
hummed with bees, they sat them down.
She questioned him about the war, the share Her 
husband had, and grown
Eager by his clear answers, straight allows
Her hidden hopes and fears to speak, and rouse
Her numbed love, which had slumbered unaware.

XVI
Under the orchard trees daffodils danced And 
jostled, turning sideways to the wind.
A dropping cherry petal...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Rhapsody on a Windy Night

...pped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
“Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Senlin: His Futile Preoccupations

...turned away, afraid to look too long! 
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes; 
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.

. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work, 
With a trowel in my hands; 
Or the vague god who blows like clouds 
Above these dripping lands . . .

But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention? 
She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way 
There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . . 
She must have known, and yet,—she let it st...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Cremona Violin

...sser, topped
By polished copper vessels which her skill
Kept brightly burnished. It was very still.
An air from `Orfeo' hummed in her head.
Herr Altgelt had been practising before
The night's performance. Charlotta had plead
With him to stay with her. Even at the door
She'd begged him not to go. "I do implore
You for this evening, Theodore," she had said.
"Leave them to-night, and stay with me instead."
"A silly poppet!" Theodore pinched her 
ear.
"You'd like to have our good...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Female Vagrant

...bsp; The bending body of my active sire;  His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore  When the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;  When market-morning came, the neat attire  With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck'd;  My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,  When stranger passed, so often I have check'd;  The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck'd.   The s...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Jacquerie A Fragment

...forth a glance against the friar's eye
That struck him like an arrow.
Then the friar,
With voice as low as if a maiden hummed
Love-songs of Provence in a mild day-dream:
"And when he broke the second seal, I heard
The second beast say, Come and see.
And then
Went out another horse, and he was red.
And unto him that sat thereon was given
To take the peace of earth away, and set
Men killing one another: and they gave
To him a mighty sword."
The friar paused
And pointed round t...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Paper Windmill

...it 
never
stopped spinning. It whirred, and whirled, and gyrated, 
and turned.
It burned like a great coloured sun. It hummed, and buzzed, 
and sparked,
and darted. There were flashes of blue, and long smearing 
lines of saffron,
and quick jabs of green. And over it all was a sheen 
like a myriad
cut diamonds. Round and round it went, the huge wind-wheel,
and the little boy's head reeled with watching it. The 
whole square
was filled with its rays, blazing and leaping round ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Return

...,
the shade deepened slowly in pools that darkened around
the trees; for a moment everything in sight stopped.
The wind hummed in my good ear, not words exactly,
not nonsense either, nor what I spoke to myself,
just the language creation once wakened to.
I took off my hat, a mistake in the presence
of my father's God, wiped my brow with what I had,
the back of my hand, and marveled at what was here:
nothing at all except the stubbornness of things....Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

The Songs of the Lathes

...1918Being the Words of the Tune Hummed at Her Lathe by Mrs. L. Embsay, Widow
The fans and the beltings they roar round me.
The power is shaking the floor round me
Till the lathes pick up their duty and the midnight-shift takes over.
 It is good for me to be here!

Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a man that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The White Bees

...ou keeper of my bees." 
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees. 

Happy Aristæus loitered in the garden, wandered
in the orchard,
Careless and contented, indolent and free; 
Lightly took his labour, lightly took his pleasure,
till the fated moment
When across his pathway came Eurydice. 

Then her eyes enkindled burning love within him;
drove him wild with longing,
For the perfect sweetness of her ...Read more of this...
by Dyke, Henry Van

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Hummed poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter