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Famous Mew Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Yeats, William Butler
...And wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.

'When she was got,' my mother sang,
I heard a sea-mew cry,
And saw a flake of the yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh.'

How therefore could she help but braid
The gold into my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care?...Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
..., adieu! my native shore
Fades o'ver the waters blue;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native Land-Good Night! 
A few short hours, and he will rise
To give the morrow birth;
And I shall hail the main and skies,
But not my mother earth.
Deserted is my own good hall,
Its hearth is desolate;
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall; 
My dog howls ...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...ll, after so frequent knew
so many all nothing,
for lead & fire, it's not we would assert
particulars, but animal; cats mew,
horses scream, man sing.

Or: men pslam. Man palms his ears and moans.
Death is a German expert. Scrambling, sitting,
spattering, we hurry.
I try to. Odd & trivial, atones
somehow for my escape a bullet splitting
my trod-on instep, fiery.

The cantor bubbled, rattled. The Temple burned.
Lurch with me! phantoms of Vars...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...e, and the nights one makes up bands 
To roam the town and sing out carnival, 
And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, 
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
And saints again. I could not paint all night-- 
Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 
There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 
A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, -- 
Flower o' the broom, 
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! 
Flower o' the quince, 
I let Lisa go, ...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...eat North Sea where the bergs are nursed, 
And the Northern Lights ride high?" 

"The Australian folk," said a lone sea-mew, 
"The Australian flag," said he. 
"It is strange that a folk that is far and few 
Should fly their flag where there never flew 
Another flag!" said he. 

"I have followed their flag in the fields of France, 
With its white stars flying free, 
And no misfortune and no mischance 
Could turn them back from their line of advance, 
Or the line that t...Read more of this...



by Hardy, Thomas
...of thought
In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,
Her husband neared; and to shun his view
By her hallowed mew
I went from the tombs among

To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced--
That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,
Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime
Of our Christian time:
It was void, and I inward clomb.

Scarce had night the sun's gold touch displaced
From the vast Rotund and the neighboring dead
When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,
With lip ...Read more of this...

by Kees, Weldon
...them by the name that is your name.
Give privilege to the wound, and maim
The last resister. Poison the air
And mew for peace, for order, and for war.

View with alarm, participant, observer,
Buried in medals from the time before.
Whisper, then believe and serve and die
And drape fresh bunting on the hemisphere
From here to India. This is the world you buy
When the wind blows fresh for war.

Hide in the dark alone, objector;
Ask a grenade what you are ...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...use of Crane rejoice with Libanotis an herb that smells like Frankinsense. 

Let Arden, house of Arden rejoice with Mew an herb with the stalk and leaves like Anise. 

Let Joram, house of Joram rejoice with Meliphylla Balm Gentle God be gracious to John Sherrat. 

Let Odwell, house of Odwell rejoice with Lappago Maiden Lips. Blessed be the name of Jesus in singularities and singular mercies. 

Let Odney, house of Odney rejoice with Canaria a simple called ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...f the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
O'er the billows of the gale;
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp and fratricides:
Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.<...Read more of this...

by Tolkien, J R R
...In fair Lothlorien.

From helm to sea they saw him leap,
As arrow from the string,
And dive into the water deep,
As mew upon the wing.

The wind was in his flowing hair,
The foam about him shone;
Afar they saw him strong and fair
Go riding like a swan.

But from the West has come no word,
And on the Hither Shore
No tidings Elven-folk have heard
Of Amroth evermore....Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...utly will that second worke assoyle,
with strong endeuour and attention dew.
Till then giue leaue to me in pleasant mew,
to sport my muse and sing my loues sweet praise:
the contemplation of whose heauenly hew,
my spirit to an higher pitch will rayse.
But let her prayses yet be low and meane,
fit for the handmayd of the Faery Queene....Read more of this...

by Turner Smith, Charlotte
...rembling lines of light
Their undulating surface; that great Power,
Who, governing the Planets, also knows
If but a Sea-Mew falls, whose nest is hid
In these incumbent cliffs; He surely means
To us, his reasoning Creatures, whom He bids
Acknowledge and revere his awful hand,
Nothing but good: Yet Man, misguided Man,
Mars the fair work that he was bid enjoy,
And makes himself the evil he deplores.
How often, when my weary soul recoils
From proud oppression, and from legal ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...master or a pope.
Of double worsted was his semicope*, *short cloak
That rounded was as a bell out of press.
Somewhat he lisped for his wantonness,
To make his English sweet upon his tongue;
And in his harping, when that he had sung,
His eyen* twinkled in his head aright, *eyes
As do the starres in a frosty night.
This worthy limitour  was call'd Huberd.

A MERCHANT was there with a forked beard,
In motley, and high on his horse he sat,
Upon his head a Fl...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...Mather Richards.


I saw a proud, mysterious cat,
I saw a proud, mysterious cat
Too proud to catch a mouse or rat—
Mew, mew, mew.

But catnip she would eat, and purr,
But catnip she would eat, and purr.
And goldfish she did much prefer—
Mew, mew, mew.

I saw a cat—'twas but a dream,
I saw a cat—'twas but a dream
Who scorned the slave that brought her cream—
Mew, mew, mew.

Unless the slave were dressed in style,
Unless the slave were dressed in style
And ...Read more of this...

by Thompson, Francis
...e!" -- to him.

And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,
Trembled up from a bath of tears;
And joy, like a mew sea-rocked apart,
Tossed on the wave of his troubled heart.

For he saw what she did not see,
That -- as kindled by its own fervency --
The verge shrivelled inward smoulderingly:
And suddenly 'twixt his hand and hers
He knew the twenty withered years -- 
No flower, but twenty shrivelled years.

"Was never such thing until this hour,"
Low to his h...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...t, with prudent care
Resolv'd it should continue there.
At length a voice which well he knew,
A long and melancholy mew,
Saluting his poetic ears,
Consol'd him, and dispell'd his fears:
He left his bed, he trod the floor,
He 'gan in haste the drawers explore,
The lowest first, and without stop
The rest in order to the top;
For 'tis a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In ev'ry cranny but the right.
Forth skipp'd ...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...ng Soul
Of feeble Man, amidst their Fury caught,
And, dash'd upon his Fate: Then, o'er the Cliff, 
Where dwells the Sea-Mew, unconfin'd, they fly,
And, hurrying, swallow up the steril Shore.

THE Mountain growls; and all its sturdy Sons
Stoop to the Bottom of the Rocks they shade:
Lone, on its Midnight-Side, and all aghast, 
The dark, way-faring, Stranger, breathless, toils,
And climbs against the Blast --
Low, waves the rooted Forest, vex'd, and sheds
What of its leafy H...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...egments green, and prick
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all thy wheezy asthma - and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.<...Read more of this...

by Wyatt, Sir Thomas
...loss of thy false feignèd grace.
By good respect in such a dangerous case
Thou broughtest not her into this tossing mew
But madest my sprite live, my care to renew,
My body in tempest her succour to embrace.
The body dead, the sprite had his desire,
Painless was th'one, th'other in delight.
Why then, alas, did it not keep it right,
Returning, to leap into the fire?
And where it was at wish, it could not remain,
Such mocks of dreams they turn to deadly pain....Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...nquest-branded brow 
Stooping to the slave of slaves 
From thy throne among the waves 85 
Wilt thou be¡ªwhen the sea-mew 
Flies, as once before it flew, 
O'er thine isles depopulate, 
And all is in its ancient state, 
Save where many a palace-gate 90 
With green sea-flowers overgrown, 
Like a rock of ocean's own, 
Topples o'er the abandon'd sea 
As the tides change sullenly. 
The fisher on his watery way, 95 
Wandering at the close of day, 
Will spread his s...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things