Famous Italian Sonnet Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Dead: IV

by Rupert Brooke
 These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, 
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. 
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, 
And sunset, and the colours of the earth. 
These had seen movement, and heard music; known 
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; 
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; 
Touched flowers and...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXIV

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 190] SONNET CLXXIV. I' dolci colli ov' io lasciai me stesso. HE LEAVES VAUCLUSE, BUT HIS SPIRIT REMAINS THERE WITH LAURA.  The loved hills where I left myself behind,Whence ever 'twas so hard my steps to tear,Before me rise; at each remove I bearThe dear load to my...Read more of this...

Another Dark Lady

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Think not, because I wonder where you fled,
That I would lift a pin to see you there; 
You may, for me, be prowling anywhere, 
So long as you show not your little head: 
No dark and evil story of the dead
Would leave you less pernicious or less fair—
Not even Lilith, with her famous hair; 
And Lilith was the devil,...Read more of this...

Nancy

by Elinor Wylie
 You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine; 
You are a pretty bird that pecks at me; 
You are a little squirrel on a tree, 
Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine; 
A diamond, torn from a crystal mine, 
Not like that milky treasure of the sea, 
A smooth, translucent pearl, but skilfully 
Carven to cut,...Read more of this...

On Seeing A Piece Of Our Artillery Brought Into Action

by Wilfred Owen
 Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,
Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse;
Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse
Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!
Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm,
And beat it down before its sins grow worse;
Spend our resentment, cannon,--yea, disburse
Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

Yet, for men's sakes whom...Read more of this...

Iii

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXVII. Amor ed io sì pien di maraviglia. HER EVERY ACTION IS DIVINE.  As one who sees a thing incredible,In mutual marvel Love and I combine,Confessing, when she speaks or smiles divine,None but herself can be her parallel.[Pg 154]Where the fine arches of that fair brow swellRead more of this...

Tears

by Lizette Woodworth Reese
 When I consider Life and its few years --
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;
The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening street, --
I wonder at the...Read more of this...

Astrophel And Stella-Sonnet LIV

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Because I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do not use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan
Of them who in their lips Love's standard bear,
"What, he!" say they of me, "now I dare swear
He cannot love. No, no, let...Read more of this...

Love

by Henry Van Dyke
 Let me but love my love without disguise,
Nor wear a mask of fashion old or new,
Nor wait to speak till I can hear a clue,
Nor play a part to shine in others' eyes,
Nor bow my knees to what my heart denies;
But what I am, to that let me be true,
And let me worship where my love is due,
And so...Read more of this...

Autumn

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging...Read more of this...

Safety

by Rupert Brooke
 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest 
He who has found our hid security, 
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, 
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' 
We have found safety with all things undying, 
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, 
The deep night, and birds singing,...Read more of this...

On Receiving a Crown of Ivy from John Keats

by James Henry Leigh Hunt
 It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind, 
Thus to be topped with leaves;--to have a sense 
Of honour-shaded thought,--an influence 
As from great nature's fingers, and be twined 
With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind, 
As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence 
A head that bows to her benevolence, 
Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind. 

It...Read more of this...

An Old French Poet

by Siegfried Sassoon
 When in your sober mood my body have ye laid 
In sight and sound of things beloved, woodland and stream, 
And the green turf has hidden the poor bones ye deem 
No more a close companion with those rhymes we made; 

Then, if some bird should pipe, or breezes stir the glade,
Thinking them for the while my voice, so...Read more of this...

A Wanderer

by Siegfried Sassoon
WHEN Watkin shifts the burden of his cares
And all that irked him in his bound employ 
Once more become a vagrom-hearted boy 
He moves to roundelays and jocund airs;
Loitering with dusty harvestmen he shares 5
Old ale and sunshine; or with maids half-coy 
Pays court to shadows; fools himself with joy 
Shaking a leg at junketings and fairs.

Sometimes returning down his...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXXI. Già desiai con sì giusta querela. HE LIVES DESTITUTE OF ALL HOPE SAVE THAT OF RENDERING HER IMMORTAL.  Erewhile I labour'd with complaint so true,And in such fervid rhymes to make me heard,[Pg 196]Seem'd as at last some spark of pity stirr'dIn the hard heart which frost...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVII: When in the Gloomy Mansion

by Mary Darby Robinson
 When, in the gloomy mansion of the dead,
This with'ring heart, this faded form shall sleep;
When these fond eyes, at length shall cease to weep,
And earth's cold lap receive this fev'rish head;
Envy shall turn away, a tear to shed,
And Time's obliterating pinions sweep
The spot, where poets shall their vigils keep,
To mourn and wander near my freezing bed!
Then, my pale ghost,...Read more of this...

Let me be to Thee as the circling bird

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Let me be to Thee as the circling bird, 
Or bat with tender and air-crisping wings
That shapes in half-light his departing rings, 
From both of whom a changeless note is heard.
I have found my music in a common word, 
Trying each pleasurable throat that sings
And every praised sequence of sweet strings, 
And know infallibly which I preferred.

The authentic cadence...Read more of this...

A Study (A Soul)

by Christina Rossetti
 She stands as pale as Parian statues stand;
 Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay,
 And felt her strength above the Roman sway,
And felt the aspic writhing in her hand.
Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land,
 For dim beyond it looms the light of day;
 Her feet are steadfast; all the arduous way
That foot-track hath not wavered on...Read more of this...

Sonnet VII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VII. Occhi miei, oscurato è 'l nostro sole. HE ENDEAVOURS TO FIND PEACE IN THE THOUGHT THAT SHE IS IN HEAVEN.  Mine eyes! our glorious sun is veil'd in night,Or set to us, to rise 'mid realms of love;There we may hail it still, and haply proveIt mourn'd that we delay'd...Read more of this...

To My Brother George

by John Keats
 Many the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kissed away the tears
That filled the eyes of Morn;—the laurelled peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;— 
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what...Read more of this...

Sonnet V

by William Shakespeare
 Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease
To grateful hearts; for by especial hap,
Deep nested in the hill's enormous lap,
With its own ring of walls and grove of trees,
Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage - nor
Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung
With clematis, the quarry whence she sprung,
O mater pulchra filia pulchrior,
Whither in early spring, unharnessed folk,
We join the pairing...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXCVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 206] SONNET CXCVIII. O cameretta che già fosti un porto. HE NO LONGER FINDS RELIEF IN SOLITUDE.  Thou little chamber'd haven to the woesWhose daily tempest overwhelms my soul!From shame, I in Heaven's light my grief control;Thou art its fountain, which each night o'erflows.My couch! that oft...Read more of this...

Lingard and the Stars

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 The table hurled itself, to our surprise, 
At Lingard, and anon rapped eagerly: 
“When earth is cold and there is no more sea, 
There will be what was Lingard. Otherwise, 
Why lure the race to ruin through the skies?
And why have Leffingwell, or Calverly?”— 
“I wish the ghost would give his name,” said he; 
And searching gratitude was in...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXI

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 298] SONNET LXXI. Del cibo onde 'l signor mio sempre abbonda. HE DESCRIBES THE APPARITION OF LAURA.  Food wherewithal my lord is well supplied,With tears and grief my weary heart I've fed;As fears within and paleness o'er me spread,Oft thinking on its fatal wound and wide:But in...Read more of this...

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