Famous Lagoon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Quadroon Girl

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 The Slaver in the broad lagoon
Lay moored with idle sail;
He waited for the rising moon,
And for the evening gale.

Under the shore his boat was tied,
And all her listless crew
Watched the gray alligator slide
Into the still bayou.

Odors of orange-flowers, and spice,
Reached them from time to time,
Like airs that breathe from Paradise
Upon a world of crime.

The Planter, under his roof of...Read more of this...

Overheard on a Saltmarsh

by Harold Monro
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?

Give them me.

No.

Give them me. Give them me.

No.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds. Lie in the mud and howl for them.

Goblin, why do you love them so?

They are better than stars or water, 
Better than voices of winds that sing, 
Better than any man's...Read more of this...

A Bush Lawyer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When Ironbark the turtle came to Anthony's lagoon 
The hills were hid behind a mist of equinoctal rain, 
The ripple of the rivulets was like a cheerful tune 
And wild companions waltzed among the grass as tall as grain. 
But Ironbark the turtle cared no whit for all of these; 
The ripple of the rivulets, the rustle of the...Read more of this...

Lost

by Robert William Service
 "Black is the sky, but the land is white--
 (O the wind, the snow and the storm!)--
 Father, where is our boy to-night?
 Pray to God he is safe and warm."

 "Mother, mother, why should you fear?
 Safe is he, and the Arctic moon
 Over his cabin shines so clear--
 Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark...Read more of this...

Hira-Singh's Farewell to Burmah

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The listless Palm-trees catch the breeze above
     The pile-built huts that edge the salt Lagoon,
   There is no Breeze to cool the heat of love,
     No wind from land or sea, at night or noon.

   Perfumed and robed I wait, my Lord, for you,
 ...Read more of this...

Inextinguibles (Immutable)

by Delmira Agustini
Spanish ¡Oh, tú que duermes tan hondo que no despiertas!Milagrosas de vivas, milagrosas de muertas,Y por muertas y vivas eternamente abiertas,Alguna noche en duelo yo encuentro tus pupilas  Bajo un trapo de sombra o una blonda de luna.Bebo en ellas la Calma como en una laguna.Por hondas, por calladas, por buenas, por tranquilas  Un lecho o una tumba parece cada una.              English   O...Read more of this...

Dr. sam

by Eugene Field
 TO MISS GRACE KING

Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I wend my way
At close of day
Unto the quaint retreat
Where lives the Voodoo Doctor
By some esteemed a sham,
Yet I'll declare there's none elsewhere
So skilled as Doctor Sam
With the claws of a deviled crawfish,
The juice of the prickly prune,
And the quivering dew
From a yarb that grew
In the light...Read more of this...

Tiare Tahiti

by Rupert Brooke
 Mamua, when our laughter ends,
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,
Are dust about the doors of friends,
Or scent ablowing down the night,
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,
Comes our immortality.
Mamua, there waits a land
Hard for us to understand.
Out of time, beyond the sun,
All are one in Paradise,
You and Pupure are one,
And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
There the Eternals are, and...Read more of this...

To A Sad Daughter

by Michael Ondaatje
 All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
cuts and wounds
--all this pleases you.
O my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpen
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.

When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even...Read more of this...

Michael Robartes And The Dancer

by William Butler Yeats
 He. Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon...Read more of this...

The English Flag

by Rudyard Kipling
 Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack,
remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately
when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts,
and seemed to see significance in the incident. -- DAILY PAPERS.


Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro --
And what should they know of England who only England know?...Read more of this...

Adela

by Aleister Crowley
 Jupiter Mars P Moon
VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910.


Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue
Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl,
As if the dread god, charioted anew
Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl
To war down all the stars. I see him through
The hair of this mine own Italian girl,
Adela
That bends her face on mine in the gondola!


There is scarce a...Read more of this...

White Nassau

by Bliss Carman
 There is fog upon the river, there is mirk upon the town;
You can hear the groping ferries as they hoot each other down;
From the Battery to Harlem there's seven miles of slush,
Through looming granite canyons of glitter, noise, and rush.
Are you sick of phones and tickers and crazing cable gongs,
Of the theatres, the hansoms, and the breathless Broadway throngs,
Of...Read more of this...

1777

by Amy Lowell
 I
The Trumpet-Vine Arbour
The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are 
wide open,
And the clangour of brass beats against the hot sunlight.
They bray and blare at the burning sky.
Red! Red! Coarse notes of red,
Trumpeted at the blue sky.
In long streaks of sound, molten metal,
The vine declares itself.
Clang! -- from its red and yellow trumpets.
Clang! -- from its long, nasal trumpets,
Splitting...Read more of this...

My Hour

by Robert William Service
 Day after day behold me plying
My pen within an office drear;
The dullest dog, till homeward hieing,
Then lo! I reign a king of cheer.
A throne have I of padded leather,
A little court of kiddies three,
A wife who smiles whate'er the weather,
A feast of muffins, jam and tea.

The table cleared, a romping battle,
A fairy tale, a "Children, bed,"
A kiss, a hug,...Read more of this...

We Are Going

by Oodgeroo Noonuccal
 They came in to the little town 
A semi-naked band subdued and silent 
All that remained of their tribe. 
They came here to the place of their old bora ground 
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants. 
Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'. 
Now it half covers the traces of the...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Golfer

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was the Bondi golfing man 
Drove off from the golf house tee, 
And he had taken his little daughter 
To bear him company. 
"Oh, Father, why do you swing the club 
And flourish it such a lot?" 
"You watch it fly o'er the fences high!" 
And he tried with a brassey shot. 

"Oh, Father, why did you hit...Read more of this...

Reedy River

by Henry Lawson
 Ten miles down Reedy River 
A pool of water lies, 
And all the year it mirrors 
The changes in the skies, 
And in that pool's broad bosom 
Is room for all the stars; 
Its bed of sand has drifted 
O'er countless rocky bars. 

Around the lower edges 
There waves a bed of reeds, 
Where water rats are hidden 
And...Read more of this...

Accordion

by Robert William Service
 Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on...Read more of this...

Nights Nothings Again

by Carl Sandburg
 WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?

Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering “hot-dog” to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler...Read more of this...

Frogs in chorus

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The chorus frogs in the big lagoon 
Would sing their songs to the silvery moon. 
Tenor singers were out of place, 
For every frog was a double bass. 
But never a human chorus yet 
Could beat the accurate time they set. 
The solo singer began the joke; 
He sang, "As long as I live I'll croak, 
Croak, I'll croak,"...Read more of this...

A Florida Night

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Win' a-blowin' gentle so de san' lay low,
San' a little heavy f'om de rain,
All de pa'ms a-wavin' an' a-weavin' slow,
Sighin' lak a sinnah-soul in pain.
Alligator grinnin' by de ol' lagoon,
Mockin'-bird a-singin' to be big full moon.[Pg 192]
'Skeeter go a-skimmin' to his fightin' chune
(Lizy Ann's a-waitin' in de lane!).
Moccasin a-sleepin' in de cyprus swamp;
Need n't wake de gent'man, not...Read more of this...

The Belfry Of Bruges

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the
town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of
widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors
gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast...Read more of this...

Starlight

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   The Stars await, serene and white,
     The unarisen moon;
   Oh, come and stay with me to-night,
     Beside the salt Lagoon!

   My hut is small, but as you lie,
     You see the lighted shore,
   And hear the rippling water sigh
...Read more of this...

Escape

by Robert William Service
 Tell me, Tramp, where I may go
To be free from human woe;
Say where I may hope to find
Ease of heart and peace of mind;
Is thee not some isle you know
Where I may leave Care behind?

So spoke one is sore distress,
And I answered softly: "Yes,
There's an isle so sweet and kind
So to clemency inclined,
So serene in loveliness
That the blind may...Read more of this...

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