Famous Languor Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Chopin

by Emma Lazarus
 I

A dream of interlinking hands, of feet 
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof 
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet, 
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof. 
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow 
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms 
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow 
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms. 
Hark...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 10: Sudden Death

by Conrad Aiken
 'Number four—the girl who died on the table—
The girl with golden hair—'
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .

One, who held the ether-cone, remembers
Her dark blue frightened eyes.
He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast
More hurriedly fall and rise.
Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her...Read more of this...

To a Skylark

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! 
Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher 
From the earth thou springest, 
Like a cloud of fire 
The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning 
Of the sunken sun, 
O'er...Read more of this...

The Flask

by Charles Baudelaire
 THERE are some powerful odours that can pass 
Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass 
To them is porous. Oft when some old box 
Brought from the East is opened and the locks 
And hinges creak and cry; or in a press 
In some deserted house, where the sharp stress 
Of odours old and dusty fills the brain; 
An...Read more of this...

There is a Languor of the Life

by Emily Dickinson
 There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain --
'Tis Pain's Successor -- When the Soul
Has suffered all it can --

A Drowsiness -- diffuses --
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness --
As Mists -- obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon -- does not blanch -- at pain
His Habit -- is severe --
But tell him that it ceased to feel --
The Creature...Read more of this...

Delilah

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 cIn the midnight of darkness and terror, 
When I would grope nearer to God, 
With my back to a record of error
And the highway of sin I have trod, 
There comes to me shapes I would banish –
The shapes of the deeds I have done; 
And I pray and I plead till they vanish –
All vanish and leave me,...Read more of this...

From Daphnaïda

by Edmund Spenser
An Elegy


SHE fell away in her first ages spring, 
Whil'st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde, 
And whil'st her braunch faire blossomes foorth did bring, 
She fell away against all course of kinde. 
For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong; 5 
She fel away like fruit blowne downe with winde. 
Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to...Read more of this...

The Reply to Time

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O TIME, forgive the mournful song 
That on thy pinions stole along, 
When the rude hand of pain severe 
Chas'd down my cheek the burning tear; 
When sorrow chill'd each warm desire 
That kindles FANCY'S lambent fire; 
When HOPE, by fost'ring FRIENDSHIP rear'd, 
A phantom of the brain appear'd; 
Forgive the song, devoid of art, 
That stole spontaneous from...Read more of this...

The Faerie Queene: Book I Canto I

by Edmund Spenser
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall...Read more of this...

My Butterfly

by Robert Frost
 Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Saave only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago--
It seems forever--
Since...Read more of this...

What Do I Care?

by Sara Teasdale
 What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
I am an answer, they are only a call.

But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
Let my heart have its say and my mind...Read more of this...

The Wilderness

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Come away! come away! there’s a frost along the marshes, 
And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water;
There’s a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland 
Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us. 
There is nothing left but ashes...Read more of this...

I Love The Naked Ages Long Ago

by Charles Baudelaire
 I love the naked ages long ago 
When statues were gilded by Apollo, 
When men and women of agility 
Could play without lies and anxiety, 
And the sky lovingly caressed their spines, 
As it exercised its noble machine. 
Fertile Cybele, mother of nature, then, 
Would not place on her daughters a burden, 
But, she-wolf sharing her heart with the...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVIII: Why Art Thou Changd?

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Why art thou chang'd? O Phaon! tell me why?
Love flies reproach, when passion feels decay;
Or, I would paint the raptures of that day,
When, in sweet converse, mingling sigh with sigh,
I mark'd the graceful languor of thine eye
As on a shady bank entranc'd we lay:
O! Eyes! whose beamy radiance stole away
As stars fade trembling from the burning sky!
Why art thou...Read more of this...

Spring in Town

by William Cullen Bryant
 The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses--showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.

Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for...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...

Sonnet XXXVI

by Edmund Spenser
 TEll me when shall these wearie woes haue end,
Or shall their ruthlesse torment neuer cease:
but al my dayes in pining languor spend,
without hope of aswagement or release.
Is there no meanes for me to purchace peace,
or make agreement with her thrilling eyes:
but that their cruelty doth still increace,
and dayly more augment my miseryes.
But when ye haue shewed all extremityes,
then thinke...Read more of this...

The Flask

by Charles Baudelaire
 THERE are some powerful odours that can pass 
Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass 
To them is porous. Oft when some old box 
Brought from the East is opened and the locks 
And hinges creak and cry; or in a press 
In some deserted house, where the sharp stress 
Of odours old and dusty fills the brain; 
An...Read more of this...

To Rosabelle

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 WHEN my young lady has grown great and staid,
And in long raiment wondrously arrayed,
She may take pleasure with a smile to know
How she delighted men-folk long ago.
For her long after, then, this tale I tell
Of the two fans and fairy Rosabelle.
Hot was the day; her weary sire and I
Sat in our chairs companionably nigh,
Each with a headache sat her...Read more of this...

The Sadness Of The Moon

by Charles Baudelaire
 THE Moon more indolently dreams to-night 
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest, 
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light, 
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast. 

Upon her silken avalanche of down, 
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh; 
And watches the white visions past her flown, 
Which rise like blossoms to the azure...Read more of this...

Always Marry An April Girl

by Ogden Nash
 Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you....Read more of this...

Rugby Chapel

by Matthew Arnold
 Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...

Mycerinus

by Matthew Arnold
 'Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;
Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,
Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.

'I will unfold my sentence and my crime.
My crime--that, rapt in reverential awe,
I sate obedient, in the fiery prime
Of...Read more of this...

May Morning

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 I lie stretched out upon the window-seat 
And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, 
And feel the air like water on me close, 
Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat 
With a small noise, monotonous and sweet, 
Against the window -- and the scent of cool, 
Frail flowers by some brown and dew-drenched pool...Read more of this...

From Daphnaida

by Edmund Spenser
 SHE fell away in her first ages spring, 
Whil'st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde, 
And whil'st her braunch faire blossomes foorth did bring, 
She fell away against all course of kinde. 
For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong; 
She fel away like fruit blowne downe with winde. 
Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to make...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Languor poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace