Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Moonbeam Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...e lift they start and shift,
 Like Fortune’s favors, tint as win.


By heedless chance I turn’d mine eyes,
 And, by the moonbeam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
 Attir’d as Minstrels wont to be.


Had I a statue been o’ stane,
 His daring look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet grav’d was plain,
 The sacred posy—“LIBERTIE!”


And frae his harp sic strains did flow,
 Might rous’d the slumb’ring Dead to hear;
But oh, it was a tale of woe,
 As ever met a Briton’s...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert



...tly admire.

As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty 
Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.

Let me show you a picture--'t is far from irrelevant--
By a famous old hand in the arts of design;
'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,--
The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.

How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on,
It can't have fatigued him,-- ...Read more of this...
by Holmes, Oliver Wendell
...th, my saviour, my lord,
Crowned; there is no more France.

Italy, what of the night? - 
Ah, child, child, it is long! 
Moonbeam and starbeam and song 
Leave it dumb now and dark. 
Yet I perceive on the height 
Eastward, not now very far, 
A song too loud for the lark, 
A light too strong for a star.

Germany, what of the night ? - 
Long has it lulled me with dreams;
Now at midwatch, as it seems, 
Light is brought back to mine eyes, 
And the mastery of old and the might 
Live...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...o the charm the maiden sang:

"'Neath the blue-bell or streamer-
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
The moonbeam away-
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like- eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now-
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours-
And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd w...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan
...the wound asleep
Sheep white hollow farms
To Wales in my arms.
Hoo, there, in castle keep,
You king singsong owls, who moonbeam
The flickering runs and dive
The dingle furred deer dead!
Huloo, on plumbed bryns,
O my ruffled ring dove
in the hooting, nearly dark
With Welsh and reverent rook,
Coo rooning the woods' praise,
who moons her blue notes from her nest
Down to the curlew herd!
Ho, hullaballoing clan
Agape, with woe
In your beaks, on the gabbing capes!
Heigh, on horseb...Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan



...
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.

The moon shines dim in the open air,
And not a moonbeam enters here.
But they without its light can see
The chamber carved so curiously,
Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet:
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fastened to an angel's feet.
The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimmed the lamp...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...hour 
Of its own fervour - what had o'er it power. 

II. 

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought 
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er, 
But I will half believe that wild light fraught 
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore 
Hath ever told - or is it of a thought 
The unembodied essence, and no more 
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass 
As dew of the night time, o'er the summer grass? 

III. 

Doth o'er us pass, when as th' expanding eye 
To the love...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan
...nkling song;
To the soft dew falling I hear it calling--
Calling and tinkling the night along.

In through the window a moonbeam comes,--
Little gold moonbeam with misty wings;
All silently creeping, it asks, "Is he sleeping--
Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?"

Up from the sea there floats the sob
Of the waves that are breaking upon the shore,
As though they were groaning in anguish, and moaning--
Bemoaning the ship that shall come no more.

But sleep, little pigeon,...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene
...ry's pen its praise or blame supplies, 
And lies like truth, and still most truly lies. 
He wandering mused, and as the moonbeam shone 
Through the dim lattice o'er the floor of stone, 
And the high fretted roof, and saints, that there 
O'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer, 
Reflected in fantastic figures grew, 
Like life, but not like mortal life, to view; 
His bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom, 
And the wide waving of his shaken plume, 
Glanced like a spectre'...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)
...o my silent feet
As, bearing gifts, I come.
Last night a beggar crouched alone,
A ragged helpless thing;
I set him on a moonbeam throne --
Today he is a king.
Last night a king in orb and crown
Held court with splendid cheer;
Today he tears his purple gown
And moans and shrieks in fear.
Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,
Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
Nor love's artillery of tears
Can keep mine own from me.
Serene, unchanging, ever fair,
I smile with secret mirth
And in a net o...Read more of this...
by Kilmer, Joyce
...uld be dimly shown. 

Too much the buried form resembling, 
Of her who once was mistress here; 
Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling, 
Might take her aspect, once so dear. 

Hers was this chamber; in her time 
It seemed to me a pleasant room, 
For then no cloud of grief or crime 
Had cursed it with a settled gloom; 

I had not seen death's image laid 
In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed. 
Before she married, she was blest­ 
Blest in her youth, blest in her worth; 
Her mi...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...and as near;
The hills are webs of shadow, slowly spun;
No separate leaf or single blade is here-
All blend to one.

No moonbeam cuts the air; a sapphire light
Rolls lazily. and slips again to rest.
There is no edged thing in all this night,
Save in my breast....Read more of this...
by Gluck, Louise
...a pebble--it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that 
you can make sure of.
 So Mr Brain opened his mouth to let a moonbeam into his head. 

 Why to be alone, and you invite the stars to tea. A cup of 
tea drinks a luminous guest. 

 In the winter could you sit quietly by the window, in the 
evening when you could have vinegar and pretend it to be 
wine, because you would do well to eat doughnuts and 
pretend you drink wine as you sit quietly by the window. You 
may kick...Read more of this...
by Edson, Russell
...only heard the winter's wind,
In many a sullen gust,
As, o'er the open grave inclined,
We murmured, "Dust to dust!"

A moonbeam from the arch's height
Streamed, as we placed the stone;
The long aisles started into light,
And all the windows shone.

We thought we saw the banners then,
That shook along the walls,
Whilst the sad shades of mail?d men
Were gazing on the stalls.

'Tis gone! again on tombs defaced
Sits darkness more profound;
And only by the torch we traced
The sha...Read more of this...
by Bowles, William Lisle
...A moonbeam floateth from the skies,
Whispering, "Heigho, my dearie!
I would spin a web before your eyes,--
A beautiful web of silver light,
Wherein is many a wondrous sight
Of a radiant garden leagues away,
Where the softly tinkling lilies sway,
And the snow-white lambkins are at play,--
Heigho, my dearie!"

A brownie stealeth from the vine
Singing, "Heigho, m...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene
...eary night 
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 
’Twas broader than the watch-fire’s light, 
And redder than the bright moonbeam. 

It glared on Roslin’s castled rock, 
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 
’Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak, 
And seen from cavern’d Hawthornden. 

Seem’d all on fire that chapel proud 
Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffin’d lie, 
Each Baron, for a sable shroud, 
Sheathed in his iron panoply. 

Seem’d all on fire within, around, 
Deep sacristy and...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...Angel spirits of sleep, 
White-robed, with silver hair, 
In your meadows fair, 
Where the willows weep, 
And the sad moonbeam 
On the gliding stream 
Writes her scatter'd dream: 

Angel spirits of sleep, 
Dancing to the weir 
In the hollow roar 
Of its waters deep; 
Know ye how men say 
That ye haunt no more 
Isle and grassy shore 
With your moonlit play; 
That ye dance not here, 
White-robed spirits of sleep, 
All the summer night 
Threading dances light?...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...dust! 

This only I say: Though cold and bare, 
The haunted house you have chosen to share, 
Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes 
And trembles on the untended rose; 
Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise 
The starry arches of the skies; 
And 'neath your lightest word shall be 
The thunder of an ebbing sea....Read more of this...
by de la Mare, Walter
...like yours can do no harm.
Our groves were planted to console at noon
The pensive wand'rer in their shades. At eve
The moonbeam, sliding softly in between
The sleeping leaves, is all the light they wish,
Birds warbling all the music. We can spare
The splendour of your lamps, they but eclipse
Our softer satellite. Your songs confound
Our more harmonious notes: the thrush departs
Scared, and th' offended nightingale is mute.
There is a public mischief in your mirth;
It plagues...Read more of this...
by Cowper, William
...rdly they caper!

I used to sit down in the pit
And see you flit like elf or fairy
Across the stage, and I'll engage
No moonbeam sprite was half so airy;
Lo, everywhere about me there
Were rivals reeking with pomatum,
And if, perchance, they caught your glance
In song or dance, how did I hate 'em!

At half-past ten came rapture--then
Of all those men was I most happy,
For bottled beer and royal cheer
And têtes-à-têtes were on the tapis.
Do you forget, my fair soubrette,
Those...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Moonbeam poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry