Famous Low Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Low poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous low poems. These examples illustrate what a famous low poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert William Service
When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,
I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.
And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --
All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.
Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
& staggered on.
The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped, & crashed.
No stunt he'll ever unflinch once more will fail
(O lucky fellow,...Read more of this...
by
Fernando Pessoa
Even as upon a low and cloud-domed day,
When clouds are one cloud till the horizon,
Our thinking senses deem the sun away
And say «'tis sunless» and «there is no sun»;
And yet the very day they wrong truth by
Is of the unseen sun's effluent essence,
The very words do give themselves the lie,
The very thought of absence comes from presence:
Even so deem we...Read more of this...
by
Emily Brontë
'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,
But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.
And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head....Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
It dropped so low -- in my Regard --
I heard it hit the Ground --
And go to pieces on the Stones
At bottom of my Mind --
Yet blamed the Fate that flung it -- less
Than I denounced Myself,
For entertaining Plated Wares
Upon my Silver Shelf --...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Seymour Bridges
The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
The house is smitten as with a flail,
The chimney shudders to the blast.
On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again;
And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold,
Enough to make one's blood run cold;
Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory.
As I've been told I'll relate the story.
T'was on the 8th April on the afternoon of that day
That the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state or dismay,
And the villagers flew to the beach in...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Sun kept stooping -- stooping -- low!
The Hills to meet him rose!
On his side, what Transaction!
On their side, what Repose!
Deeper and deeper grew the stain
Upon the window pane --
Thicker and thicker stood the feet
Until the Tyrian
Was crowded dense with Armies --
So gay, so Brigadier --
That I felt martial stirrings
Who once the Cockade wore --
Charged from my chimney corner...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The Sky is low -- the Clouds are mean.
A Travelling Flake of Snow
Across a Barn or through a Rut
Debates if it will go --
A Narrow Wind complains all Day
How some one treated him
Nature, like Us is sometimes caught
Without her Diadem....Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Swing high and swing low
While the breezes they blow -
It's off for a sailor thy father would go;
And it's here in the harbor, in sight of the sea,
He hath left his wee babe with my song and with me:
"Swing high and swing low
While the breezes they blow!"
Swing high and swing low
While the breezes they blow -
It's oh for the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Among these latter busts we count by scores,
Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,
Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,
Loricand low-browed Gorgon on the breast,---
One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear.
Now read here. ``Protus ends a period
``Of empery beginning with a god;
``Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,
``Queens...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
LOUD and low in the chimney
The squalls suspire;
Then like an answer dwindles
And glows the fire,
And the chamber reddens and darkens
In time like taken breath.
Near by the sounding chimney
The youth apart
Hearkens with changing colour
And leaping heart,
And hears in the coil of the tempest
The voice of love and death.
Love on high in the flute-like
And tender notes
Sounds as from April meadows
And hillside...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Heart of my heart, the day is chill,
The mist hangs low o'er the wooded hill,
The soft white mist and the heavy cloud
The sun and the face of heaven shroud.
The birds are thick in the dripping trees,
That drop their pearls to the beggar breeze;
No songs are rife where songs are wont,
Each singer crouches in his haunt.
Heart of my heart, the day...Read more of this...
by
Bliss Carman
The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.
And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream--
A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of...Read more of this...
by
Walter Savage Landor
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear....Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
And wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so---
I would not give that bosom pain.
My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,
My blood runs coldly through my breast;
And when I perish, thou alone
Wilt sigh above my place of rest.
And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace
Doth through my cloud...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,—
The bottom of the sea once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Low at my problem bending,
Another problem comes --
Larger than mine -- Serener --
Involving statelier sums.
I check my busy pencil,
My figures file away.
Wherefore, my baffled fingers
They perplexity?...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
How many times these low feet staggered --
Only the soldered mouth can tell --
Try -- can you stir the awful rivet --
Try -- can you lift the hasps of steel!
Stroke the cool forehead -- hot so often --
Lift -- if you care -- the listless hair --
Handle the adamantine fingers
Never a thimble -- more -- shall wear --
Buzz the...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Vous eûtes donc hier un an.")
{September, 1870.}
You've lived a year, then, yesterday, sweet child,
Prattling thus happily! So fledglings wild,
New-hatched in warmer nest 'neath sheltering bough,
Chirp merrily to feel their feathers grow.
Your mouth's a rose, Jeanne! In these volumes grand
Whose pictures please you—while I trembling...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down;
There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so I've sent my klooch to town,
With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.
And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home with the bottles, one, two, three --
One for...Read more of this...
by
Henry David Thoreau
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
On the low margin of a murm'ring stream,
As rapt in meditation's arms I lay;
Each aching sense in slumbers stole away,
While potent fancy form'd a soothing dream;
O'er the Leucadian deep, a dazzling beam
Shed the bland light of empyrean day!
But soon transparent shadows veil'd each ray,
While mystic visions sprang athwart the gleam!
Now to the heaving gulf they seem'd to bend,
And now...Read more of this...
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