Famous Lightens Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Russian-american Romance

by Andrei Voznesensky
  In my land and yours they do hit the hay 
 and sleep the whole night in a similar way. 

 There's the golden Moon with a double shine. 
 It lightens your land and it lightens mine. 

 At the same low price, that is for free, 
 there's the sunrise for you and the sunset for...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 105. To-night ungatherd let us leave

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 To-night ungather'd let us leave 
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
Our father's dust is left alone
And silent under other snows:
There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.
No more shall wayward grief abuse
The genial hour with mask and mime;
For change of place, like growth of time,
Has...Read more of this...

340. Song—Thou Fair Eliza

by Robert Burns
 TURN again, thou fair Eliza!
 Ae kind blink before we part;
Rue on thy despairing lover,
 Can’st thou break his faithfu’ heart?
Turn again, thou fair Eliza!
 If to love thy heart denies,
Oh, in pity hide the sentence
 Under friendship’s kind disguise!


Thee, sweet maid, hae I offended?
 My offence is loving thee;
Can’st thou wreck his peace for ever,
 Wha for thine...Read more of this...

Sonnet VIII

by Alan Seeger
 Oft as by chance, a little while apart 
The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, 
Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, 
Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: 
Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe 
Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, 
Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw 
Seem a new heaven...Read more of this...

She Walks in Beauty

by George (Lord) Byron
She walks in Beauty, like the night 
Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 
And all that's best of dark and bright 
Meet in her aspect and her eyes: 
Thus mellowed to that tender light 
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
Had half impaired the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress,...Read more of this...

Essence

by Ehsan Sehgal
"When you play cards in the way of true love, your are defeated by yourself, you cannot blame anyone else, love does not hide identity, when it is existed, it lightens the all sides, nowhere is darkness. That is essence of true love."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

Translations: Dante - Inferno Canto XXVI

by Alan Seeger
 Florence, rejoice! For thou o'er land and sea 
So spread'st thy pinions that the fame of thee 
Hath reached no less into the depths of Hell. 
So noble were the five I found to dwell 
Therein -- thy sons -- whence shame accrues to me 
And no great praise is thine; but if it be 
That truth unveil in...Read more of this...

I Saw Thee Weep

by George (Lord) Byron
 I saw thee weep---the big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew:
I saw thee smile---the sapphire's blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;
It could not match the living rays
That filled that glance of thine.
As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,
Which scarce the shade of coming eve
Can banish from the sky,
Those...Read more of this...

Jim Carew

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Born of a thoroughbred English race, 
Well proportioned and closely knit, 
Neat, slim figure and handsome face, 
Always ready and always fit, 
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew, 
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew. 
One of the sons of the good old land -- 
Many a year since his like was known; 
Never a game but he took...Read more of this...

On the Death of Robert Browning

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 He held no dream worth waking; so he said,
He who stands now on death's triumphal steep,
Awakened out of life wherein we sleep
And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead.
But never death for him was dark or dread;
"Look forth," he bade the soul, and fear not. Weep,
All ye that trust not in his truth, and keep
Vain memory's vision...Read more of this...

My Friends Light

by Andrei Voznesensky
 I'm waiting for my friend. The gate's unlocked. 
 The banisters are lit so he can walk. 

 I'm waiting for my friend. The times are dull and tough. 
 Anticipation lightens our life. 

 He's driving down the Ring Road, at full speed, 
 the way I did it when he was in need. 

 He will arrive...Read more of this...

Regret

by Victor Hugo
 ("Oui, le bonheur bien vite a passé.") 
 
 {Bk. V. ii., February, 1821.} 


 Yes, Happiness hath left me soon behind! 
 Alas! we all pursue its steps! and when 
 We've sunk to rest within its arms entwined, 
 Like the Phoenician virgin, wake, and find 
 Ourselves alone again. 
 
 Then, through the distant future's...Read more of this...

466. Ode for General Washington's Birthday

by Robert Burns
 NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
 No lyre Æolian I awake;
’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,
 Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
 And dash it in a tyrant’s face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared—
 No more the despot of Columbia’s race!
A tyrant’s...Read more of this...

The Morning Star

by George William Russell
 IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star,
And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar
Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen,
Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men.


In the dark tarn of my spirit, love, the morning star, is lit;
And its halo, ever brightening, lightens...Read more of this...

Messidor

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
And the long large ranks of the corn
Coloured and clothed as the morn
Stand thick in the fields and deep
For them that faint to be fed.
Let all that hunger and weep
Come hither, and who would have bread
Put in the sickles and reap.

Coloured and clothed as the morn,
The grain grows...Read more of this...

56. Epistle to Davie A Brother Poet

by Robert Burns
 WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
 An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
 In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
 Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
 That live sae bien an’ snug:
...Read more of this...

Carrowmore

by George William Russell
 IT’S a lonely road through bogland to the lake at Carrowmore,
And a sleeper there lies dreaming where the water laps the shore;
Though the moth-wings of the twilight in their purples are unfurled,
Yet his sleep is filled with music by the masters of the world.


There’s a hand is white as silver that is fondling with his hair:
There are glimmering feet...Read more of this...

Past Days

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 I.

Dead and gone, the days we had together,
Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone
Round them, flown as flies the blown foam's feather,
Dead and gone.

Where we went, we twain, in time foregone,
Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether,
If I go again, I go alone.

Bound am I with time as with a tether;
Thee perchance death leads enfranchised on,
Far from deathlike...Read more of this...

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