Famous Jewel Poems by Famous Poets

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

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322. Song—The Bonie Wee Thing

by Robert Burns
 Chorus.—Bonie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
 Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
I wad wear thee in my bosom,
 Lest my jewel it should tine.


WISHFULLY I look and languish
 In that bonie face o’ thine,
And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish,
 Lest my wee thing be na mine.
 Bonie wee thing, &c.


Wit, and Grace, and Love, and Beauty,
 In ae...Read more of this...

Nora: A Serenade

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ah, Nora, my Nora, the light fades away,
While Night like a spirit steals up o'er the hills;
The thrush from his tree where he chanted all day,
No longer his music in ecstasy trills.
Then, Nora, be near me; thy presence doth cheer me,
Thine eye hath a gleam that is truer than gold.
I cannot but love thee; so do not reprove me,
Read more of this...

Indian Dancers

by Sarojini Naidu
 EYES ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire 
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; 
O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, 
And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night....Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXXI

by William Shakespeare
  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear...Read more of this...

Hypochondriac

by Chris Tusa
 Maybe it’s Emphysema, a shiny black jewel of phlegm 
humming like a clump of bees in my chest. 
Perhaps a tumor crawling in the crook of my armpit, 
a blood clot opening like a tiny red flower in my brain.

Maybe it’s too early to show up on an X-ray, 
a kind of cancerous seed planted deep 
in my intestine,...Read more of this...

A Canvas For A Crust

by Robert William Service
 Aye, Montecelli, that's the name.
You may have heard of him perhaps.
Yet though he never savoured fame,
Of those impressionistic chaps,
Monet and Manet and Renoir
 He was the avatar.

He festered in a Marseilles slum,
A starving genius, god-inspired.
You'd take him for a lousy bum,
Tho' poetry of paint he lyred,
In dreamy pastels each a gem: . . .
 How people laughed at them!

He...Read more of this...

I held a jewel in my fingers

by Emily Dickinson
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: " 'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own....Read more of this...

Something Has Fallen

by Philip Levine
 Something has fallen wordlessly 
and holds still on the black driveway. 

You find it, like a jewel, 
among the empty bottles and cans 

where the dogs toppled the garbage. 
You pick it up, not sure 

if it is stone or wood 
or some new plastic made 

to replace them both. 
When you raise your sunglasses 

to see exactly what...Read more of this...

277. Song—My Eppie Adair

by Robert Burns
 Chorus.—An’ O my Eppie, my jewel, my Eppie,
 Wha wad na be happy wi’ Eppie Adair?


BY love, and by beauty, by law, and by duty,
I swear to be true to my Eppie Adair!
By love, and by beauty, by law, and by duty,
I swear to be true to my Eppie Adair!
 And O my Eppie, &c.


A’ pleasure exile me, dishonour...Read more of this...

Lancelot

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Gawaine, aware again of Lancelot 
In the King’s garden, coughed and followed him; 
Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms 
And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed— 
Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories
Fanned a sad wrath. “Why frown upon a friend? 
Few live that have too many,” Gawaine said, 
And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light...Read more of this...

Renunciation

by Dorothy Parker
 It’s a jade branch on the floor, broken in two, love,
or a stain raised on the lapped grains of a suede glove.

It’s the lace, blown by a strong breeze, of an old gown
with the cranes crying at night, lost in their long sound.

It’s a vase made from the noon light in a closed place,
and it falls, shatters the sharp...Read more of this...

Monadnock in Early Spring

by Amy Lowell
 Cloud-topped and splendid, dominating all
The little lesser hills which compass thee,
Thou standest, bright with April's buoyancy,
Yet holding Winter in some shaded wall
Of stern, steep rock; and startled by the call
Of Spring, thy trees flush with expectancy
And cast a cloud of crimson, silently,
Above thy snowy crevices where fall
Pale shrivelled oak leaves, while the snow beneath
Melts at their phantom touch. Another...Read more of this...

The Jewel Stairs Grievance

by Ezra Pound
 The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn....Read more of this...

Old Boy Scout

by Robert William Service
 A bonny bird I found today
Mired in a melt of tar;
Its silky breast was silver-grey,
Its wings were cinnabar.
So still it lay right in the way
Of every passing car.

Yet as I gently sought to pry
It loose, it glared at me;
You would have thought its foe was I,
It pecked so viciously;
So fiercely fought, as soft I sought
From death to set it...Read more of this...

The Press

by Rudyard Kipling
 "The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat"-- A Diversity of Creatures
The Soldier may forget his Sword,
 The Sailorman the Sea,
The Mason may forget the Word
 And the Priest his Litany:
The Maid may forget both jewel and gem,
 And the Bride her wedding-dress--
But the Jew shall forget Jerusalem
 Ere we forget the Press!

Who once hath stood through the loaded...Read more of this...

Christmas Eve

by Anne Sexton
 Oh sharp diamond, my mother! 
I could not count the cost 
of all your faces, your moods-- 
that present that I lost. 
Sweet girl, my deathbed, 
my jewel-fingered lady, 
your portrait flickered all night 
by the bulbs of the tree. 

Your face as calm as the moon 
over a mannered sea, 
presided at the family reunion, 
the twelve grandchildren...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Chattahoochee

by Sidney Lanier
 Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the...Read more of this...

The Freedom of the Moon

by Robert Frost
 I've tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I've tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.

I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I've pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And...Read more of this...

Indian Dancer

by Sarojini Naidu
 EYES ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate bosoms aflaming with fire 
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; 
O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, 
And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night.


The...Read more of this...

46. The Belles of Mauchline

by Robert Burns
 IN Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles,
 The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’;
Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess,
 In Lon’on or Paris, they’d gotten it a’.


Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland’s divine,
 Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw:
There’s beauty and fortune to get wi’ Miss Morton,
 But Armour’s the...Read more of this...

The Jewel

by James Wright
 There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobodyt is going to touch:
A cloister, a silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
My bones turn to dark emeralds....Read more of this...

338. Song—My Tocher's the Jewel

by Robert Burns
 O MEIKLE thinks my luve o’ my beauty,
 And meikle thinks my luve o’ my kin;
But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie
 My tocher’s the jewel has charms for him.
It’s a’ for the apple he’ll nourish the tree,
 It’s a’ for the hinny he’ll cherish the bee,
My laddie’s sae meikle in luve wi’ the siller,
 He canna hae...Read more of this...

Dust

by Sara Teasdale
 When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire—
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.

I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes—
It is strange how...Read more of this...

Indian Love Song

by Sarojini Naidu
 She

LIKE a serpent to the calling voice of flutes, 
Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love! 
Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above 
His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers; 
And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits 
Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers. 


He

Like the perfume in the petals of a rose, 
Hides thy heart within my bosom, O...Read more of this...

Enigmas

by Pablo Neruda
 You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with 
 his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent 
 bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a...Read more of this...

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