Famous Mellowed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Indian Summer

by Robert William Service
 Here in the Autumn of my days
My life is mellowed in a haze.
Unpleasant sights are none to clear,
Discordant sounds I hardly hear.
Infirmities like buffers soft
Sustain me tranquilly aloft.
I'm deaf to duffers, blind to bores,
Peace seems to percolate my pores.
I fold my hands, keep quiet mind,
In dogs and children joy I find.
With temper tolerant and mild,
Myself you'd almost think a...Read more of this...

Growing Old

by Matthew Arnold
 What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.

Is it to feel our strength— 
Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?

Yes, this, and more!...Read more of this...

The Otter

by Seamus Heaney
 When you plunged
The light of Tuscany wavered
And swung through the pool
From top to bottom.

I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,
Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders
Surfacing and surfacing again
This year and every year since.

I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.
You were beyond me.
The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air
Thinned and disappointed.

Thank God for the slow loadening,
When I hold you now
We...Read more of this...

In The Small Hours

by Wole Soyinka
Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers
Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins
Of marooned mariners, captives
Of Circe's sultry notes. The barman
Dispenses igneous potions ?
Somnabulist, the band plays on.

Cocktail mixer, silvery fish
Dances for limpet clients.
Applause is steeped in lassitude,
Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers
And artful eyelash of the androgynous.
The...Read more of this...

The Absinthe Drinkers

by Robert William Service
 He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He's sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He's staring at the passers with his customary stare.
He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng,
That current cosmopolitan meandering along:
Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru,
An Englishman from...Read more of this...

In The Small Hours

by
 Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze, 
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers
Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins 
Of marooned mariners, captives 
Of Circe's sultry notes. The barman
Dispenses igneous potions ?
Somnabulist, the band plays on. 

Cocktail mixer, silvery fish
Dances for limpet clients.
Applause is steeped in lassitude,
Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers
And...Read more of this...

The Harvest Bow

by Seamus Heaney
 As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I...Read more of this...

LEscargot DOr

by Robert William Service
 O Tavern of the Golden Snail!
Ten sous have I, so I'll regale;
Ten sous your amber brew to sip
(Eight for the bock and two the tip),
And so I'll sit the evening long,
And smoke my pipe and watch the throng,
The giddy crowd that drains and drinks,
I'll watch it quiet as a sphinx;
And who among them all shall buy
For ten poor sous...Read more of this...

To a Poet

by Claude McKay
 There is a lovely noise about your name, 
Above the shoutings of the city clear, 
More than a moment's merriment, whose claim 
Will greater grow with every mellowed year. 

The people will not bear you down the street, 
Dancing to the strong rhythm of your words, 
The modern kings will throttle you to greet 
The piping voice of artificial...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...

After the Earthquake

by Erica Jong
 After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .

After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. ....Read more of this...

The Blue Mountains

by Henry Lawson
 Above the ashes straight and tall, 
Through ferns with moisture dripping, 
I climb beneath the sandstone wall, 
My feet on mosses slipping. 

Like ramparts round the valley's edge 
The tinted cliffs are standing, 
With many a broken wall and ledge, 
And many a rocky landing. 

And round about their rugged feet 
Deep ferny dells are hidden 
In shadowed depths,...Read more of this...

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