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Famous Kernel Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lowell, Amy
...hite almond from the green husk
So would I strip your trappings off,
Beloved.
And fingering the smooth and polished kernel
I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond counting....Read more of this...



by Soyinka, Wole
...your lips.

Shield you like the flesh of palms, skyward held
Cuspids in thorn nesting, insealed as the heart of kernel—
A woman's flesh is oil—child, palm oil on your tongue

Is suppleness to life, and wine of this gourd
From self-same timeless run of runnels as refill
Your podlings, child, weaned from yours we embrace

Earth's honeyed milk, wine of the only rib.
Now roll your tongue in honey till your cheeks are
Swarming honeycombs—your world needs sweet...Read more of this...

by Tate, James
...of everlasting joy and sorrow, 
fanciful pen strokes beneath the eyelids:
all day, all night meditation, knot of hope,
kernel of desire, pure ordinariness of life 
seeking, through poetry, a benediction
or a bed to lie down on, to connect, reveal,
explore, to imbue meaning on the day's extravagant labor. 
And yet it's cruel to expect too much. 
It's a rare species of bird 
that refuses to be categorized.
Its song is barely audible.
It is like a dragonfly in a...Read more of this...

by Taylor, Edward
...of everlasting joy and sorrow, 
fanciful pen strokes beneath the eyelids:
all day, all night meditation, knot of hope,
kernel of desire, pure ordinariness of life 
seeking, through poetry, a benediction
or a bed to lie down on, to connect, reveal,
explore, to imbue meaning on the day's extravagant labor. 
And yet it's cruel to expect too much. 
It's a rare species of bird 
that refuses to be categorized.
Its song is barely audible.
It is like a dragonfly in a...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...o take a fancied city of delight,
O what a wretch is he! and when 'tis his,
After long toil and travelling, to miss
The kernel of his hopes, how more than vile:
Yet, for him there's refreshment even in toil;
Another city doth he set about,
Free from the smallest pebble-bead of doubt
That he will seize on trickling honey-combs:
Alas, he finds them dry; and then he foams,
And onward to another city speeds.
But this is human life: the war, the deeds,
The disappointment, the ...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...uch glee?
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left
 Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?--
‘For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,
 And cold mushrooms;
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;
Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth!--
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
To our mad minstrelsy!'

"Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent,
Onward the tiger and the leop...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...that unknown orchard bore,
She sucked until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away,
But gathered up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.

Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
"Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...hoar,
And put her lean hands to the horrid thing:
Three hours they labour'd at this travail sore;
At last they felt the kernel of the grave,
And Isabella did not stamp and rave.

XLIX.
Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?
Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?
O for the gentleness of old Romance,
The simple plaining of a minstrel's song!
Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,
For here, in truth, it doth not well belong
To speak:--O turn thee to the very ta...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped f...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...ountainous sea,
I know not where, but which a dream diurnal
Paints on my lids a moment till the hull
Be lifted from the kernel
And Slumber fed to me.
Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene,
Though it would seem a ruined place and after
Your lichenous heart, being full
Of broken columns, caryatides
Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees,
And urns funereal altered into dust
Minuter than the ashes of the dead,
And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-t...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left 85 
Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?'¡ª 
'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; 
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms, 
And cold mushrooms; 
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; 90 
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth! 
Come hither, lady fair, and join¨¨d be 
To our mad minstrelsy!' 

Over wide streams and mountains great we went, 
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, 95 
Onward ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...glee? 
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left 
 Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?'-- 
'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; 
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms, 
 And cold mushrooms; 
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; 
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth! 
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be 
 To our mad minstrelsy!' 

Over wide streams and mountains great we went, 
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, 
Onward the tiger and t...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...glee? 
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left 
 Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?'-- 
'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; 
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms, 
 And cold mushrooms; 
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; 
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth! 
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be 
 To our mad minstrelsy!' 

Over wide streams and mountains great we went, 
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, 
Onward the tiger and t...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...t he has in him; 
The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them. 

Only the kernel of every object nourishes; 
Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me? 

Here is adhesiveness—it is not previously fashion’d—it is apropos; 
Do you know what it is, as you pass, to be loved by strangers? 
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls? 

7
Here is the efflux of...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...r> "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down at the corner says
We need a battle to shake the clouds;
But I am a man of peace, my ways
Don't look to the killing of men in crowds.
Poor fellows with guns and bayonets for shrouds!
Pray, Mademoiselle, come out of the sun.
Let me dust off that wicker chair. It's cool
In here, f...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...e it in his hand?
It lights not him--it but consumes
The city and the land!

Rejoice and laud the prospering skies!
The kernel bursts its husk--behold
From the dull clay the metal rise,
Pure-shining, as a star of gold!
Neck and lip, but as one beam,
It laughs like a sunbeam.
And even the scutcheon, clear-graven, shall tell
That the art of a master has fashioned the bell!

Come in--come in
My merry men--we'll form a ring
The new-born labor christening;
And "Concord" we wil...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ck'd in itself, 'neath the integument 
lay,
Leaf and root, and bud, still void of colour, and shapeless;

Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless 
life.
Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding,

And, from the night where it dwelt, straightway 
ascendeth to light.
Yet still simple remaineth its figure, when first it appeareth;

And 'tis a token like this, points out the child 
'mid the plants.
Soon a shoot, succeeding it, riseth...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...e from Psyche's lecture, you that talked 
The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?' 
'O trash' he said, 'but with a kernel in it. 
Should I not call her wise, who made me wise? 
And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash, 
Than in my brainpan were an empty hull, 
And every Muse tumbled a science in. 
A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 
And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 
Whence follows many a vacan...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...rm plan points out the Ruler to me.
Brightly the glittering domes in far-away distance proclaim him.
Out of the kernel of rocks rises the city's high wall.
Into the desert without, the fauns of the forest are driven,
But by devotion is lent life more sublime to the stone.
Man is brought into nearer union with man, and around him
Closer, more actively wakes, swifter moves in him the world.
See! the emulous forces in fiery conflict are kindled,
Much, they ef...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...-trees 5 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells 
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more  
And still more later flowers for the bees  
Until they think warm days will never cease 10 
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor  
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15 
...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things