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Famous Lawns Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...ibutary strain. 
Sweet grove no more I visit you, no more 
Beneath your shades shall meditate my lay. 
Adieu ye lawns and thou fair hill adieu, 
And you O shepherds, and ye graces fair 
With comely presence honouring the day, 
Far hence I go to some sequest'red vale 
By woody hill or shady mountain side, 
Where far from converse and the social band, 
My days shall pass inglorious away: [3] 
But this shall be my exultation still 
My chiefest merit and my only joy, 
Tha...Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...of the dark blue light of day
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 
Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine
A soul-dissolving odor to invite
To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell
Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
Their noonday watch, and sail am...Read more of this...

by Aldington, Richard
...k, I remember, 
And that was damned dull, too, 
With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, 
And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, 
And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, 
And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, 
And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," 
And its gravel paths. 

And on Sundays they rang the bells, 
From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. 
They had a Salvation Army. 
I was taken to a...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...nd fear;
And RO poor hapless nightingale," thought I,
How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!"
Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste,
Through paths and turnings often trod by day,
Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place
Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise
(For so by certain signs I knew), had met
Already, ere my best speed could prevent,
The aidless innocent lady, his wished prey;
Who gently asked if he had seen such two,
Supposing him some ne...Read more of this...

by Bowers, Edgar
...f that man built Flying Fortresses
For Lockheed, in Atlanta; now they build
Brick mansions in the woods they left, with lawns
To paved and lighted streets, azaleas, camellias
Blooming among the pines and tulip trees—
Mercedes Benz and Cadillac Republicans.
There was another stream further along 
Divided through a marsh, lined by the fence
We stretched to posts with Mister Garner’s help
The time he needed cash for his son’s bail
And offered all his place. A noble sprin...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...hence.
Alpheus! thou enchanter! every sense
Of mine was once made perfect in these woods.
Fresh breezes, bowery lawns, and innocent floods,
Ripe fruits, and lonely couch, contentment gave;
But ever since I heedlessly did lave
In thy deceitful stream, a panting glow
Grew strong within me: wherefore serve me so,
And call it love? Alas, 'twas cruelty.
Not once more did I close my happy eyes
Amid the thrush's song. Away! Avaunt!
O 'twas a cruel thing."--"Now t...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...hat other lived alone.
In those two deaths he read God's warning `wait.' 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,
The lightning flash of insect and of bird,
The lustre of the long convolvuluses
That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows
And glories of the broad belt of the world,
All these he saw; but what he fain had seen
He cou...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...those gates beyond their breach had been, 
 Had they sought entry with us. 
 Of
 coolest green 
 Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there, 
 Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair 
 To accord with its containing. 
 Grave,
 austere, 
 Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they 
 That walked that verdure. 
 To a
 place aside 
 Open, and light, and high, we passed, and here 
 Looked downward on the lawns, in clear survey 
 Of such great spirits as...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...I. Ancestral Houses

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.

Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not f...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...shed with golden rind, 
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, 
If true, here only, and of delicious taste: 
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks 
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, 
Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap 
Of some irriguous valley spread her store, 
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose: 
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves 
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine 
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps 
Luxuriant; mean...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...namored air.

Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked
The altars of First Love were these green ways,
These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked
With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;
Oft where the long straight allies intersect
And marble seats surround the open space,
Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,
Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.

When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade
Beneath that old titanic cypress...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
..., too, cried, "This Quest is not for thee." 

`And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst 
Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook, 
With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white 
Played ever back upon the sloping wave, 
And took both ear and eye; and o'er the brook 
Were apple-trees, and apples by the brook 
Fallen, and on the lawns. "I will rest here," 
I said, "I am not worthy of the Quest;" 
But even while I drank the brook, and ate 
The goodly apples, a...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...es, and satiated their hearts-- 
Now talking of their woodland paradise, 
The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns; 
Now mocking at the much ungainliness, 
And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark-- 
Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang: 

`Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bend the brier! 
A star in heaven, a star within the mere! 
Ay, ay, O ay--a star was my desire, 
And one was far apart, and one was near: 
Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bow the grass...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...at day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were
splendidly deserted. Beach bums in rags slept on the lawns above the sand. Others sat on
stone benches sharing a lone bottle. The gulls whirled about, mindless yet distracted. Old
ladies in their 70's and 80's sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left
behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity of survival. For it all,
there was peace in the air and we walked ab...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...n the orange thickets: others tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter: others lay about the lawns, 
Of the older sort, and murmured that their May 
Was passing: what was learning unto them? 
They wished to marry; they could rule a house; 
Men hated learned women: but we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came 
Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
That harmed not: then day droopt; the chapel bells 
Cal...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people: thither flocked at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighbouring borough with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son,--the son 
A Walter too,--with others of our set, 
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that mornin...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...governors had strolled 
and black gardeners had smiled over glinting shears 
at the lilies of parasols on the floating lawns, 
the flame trees obeyed his will and lowered their wicks, 
the flowers tightened their fists in the name of thrift, 
the porcelain lamps of ripe cocoa, the magnolia's jet 
dimmed on the one circuit with the ginger lilies 
and left a lonely bulb on the verandah, 
and, had his mandate extended to that ceiling 
of star-apple candelabra, he would have ord...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...dious dew
Out of their mossy cells forever burst
Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
Of grassy paths, & wood lawns interspersed
With overarching elms & caverns cold,
And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
Pursued their serious folly as of old ....
And as I gazed methought that in the way
The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
When the South wind shakes the extinguished day.--
And a cold glare, intenser than the noon
But icy co...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor,
In many a mimic moon and bearded star,
O'er woods and lawns. The serpent heard it flicker
In sleep, and, dreaming still, he crept afar.
And, when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn-leaves, she watched it as it came
Melt on the surface of the level flame.

She had a boat which some say Vulcan wrought
For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With al...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...t;
they dripped loudly
and had to be emptied
again and
again.
the rain came up over the street curbings,
across the lawns, climbed up the steps and
entered the houses.
there were mops and bathroom towels,
and the rain often came up through the 
toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling,
and all the old cars stood in the streets,
cars that had problems starting on a 
sunny day,
and the jobless men stood
looking out the windows
at the old machines dying
like living things...Read more of this...

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