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Famous Murmured Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...w wept his own,
As in the accents of an unknown land
He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned
The Stranger's mien, and murmured: "Who art thou?"
He answered not, but with a sudden hand
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,
Which was like Cain's or Christ's -oh! that it should be so!

What softer voice is hushed over the dead?
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed,
In mockery of monumental stone,
The heavy ...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...arms, nor cared at all his passion's will to check.

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,
For all night long he murmured honeyed word,
And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed
Her pale and argent body undisturbed,
And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed
His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast.

It was as if Numidian javelins
Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain,
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins
In ex...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ke the prisoned soul,
And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept,
And chid her barking waves into attention,
And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
And she shall be my queen.QHail, foreign wonder!
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
Unless the godd...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...touch'd his forehead, he began to thread
All courts and passages, where silence dead
Rous'd by his whispering footsteps murmured faint:
And long he travers'd to and fro, to acquaint
Himself with every mystery, and awe;
Till, weary, he sat down before the maw
Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim
To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.
There, when new wonders ceas'd to float before,
And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore
The journey homeward to habitual self!
A mad-...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...d not, he looked not, he spake not
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering fire-light.
"Benedicite!" murmured the priest, in tones of compassion.
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his accents
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on a threshold,
Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow.
Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden,
Raising his tearful eyes to the si...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...ectres two falling to depths profound; 
 Then, stooping o'er the pit, he gazed below, 
 And, as half-dreaming now, he murmured low, 
 "Tiger and jackal meet their portion here, 
 'Tis well together they should disappear!" 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 DAYBREAK. 
 
 Then lifts he Mahaud to the ducal chair, 
 And shuts the trap with noiseless, gentle care; 
 And puts in order everything around, 
 So that, on waking, naught should her astound. 
 
 "No drop of blood the thing has...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...artless Mudjekeewis.
For her daughter long and loudly 
Wailed and wept the sad Nokomis; 
"Oh that I were dead!" she murmured, 
"Oh that I were dead, as thou art! 
No more work, and no more weeping, 
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!"
By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 
Dark behind it rose the forest, 
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 
Rose the firs with cones upon them; 
Bright before it...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...--
The Butterflies -- as Swans --
Approached -- and spurned the narrow Grass --
And just the meanest Tunes

That Nature murmured to herself
To keep herself in Cheer --
I took for Giants -- practising
Titanic Opera --

The Days -- to Mighty Metres stept --
The Homeliest -- adorned
As if unto a Jubilee
'Twere suddenly confirmed --

I could not have defined the change --
Conversion of the Mind
Like Sanctifying in the Soul --
Is witnessed -- not explained --

'Twas a Divine Insan...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody murmured, Oh dear, oh dear!
I've discovered the Western Hemisphere.

And that, you may think, my friends, was that.
But it wasn't. Not by a fireman's hat.
Well enough wasn't left alone,
And Columbus was only a cornerstone.
There came the Spaniards,
There came the Greeks,
There came the Pilgrims in leather breeks.
There came the Dutch,...Read more of this...

by Campbell, Thomas
...! 't was then my tortured soul
First gave to wrath unlimited control !
Adieu the silent look ! the streaming eye !
The murmured plaint ! the deep heart-heaving sigh !
Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds ;
He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds !
Now the last laugh of agony is o'er,
And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more !

'T is done ! the flame of hate no longer burns :
Nature relents, but, ah! too late returns!
Why does my soul this gush of fondn...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ad had to organize to stock the graveyards
And vindicate the state's humanity.
"Just the way Stefansson runs on," I murmured,
"About the British Arctic. That's what comes
Of being in the market with a climate."

I met a poet from another state,
A zealot full of fluid inspiration,
Who in the name of fluid inspiration,
But in the best style of bad salesmanship,
Angrily tried to male me write a protest
(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.
He didn't even o...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...n the City's toil and strife -- 


Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key, 
And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands. 


And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory, 
Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed: 


When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood, 
And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice, 


At Love's high altar fit to stand...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...s, above
Her knelt Sir Everard, with face alert.

XXXII
Her eyelids fell again at that sweet sight, "My 
Love!" she murmured, "Dearest! Oh, my Dear!"
He took her in his arms and bore her right And tenderly to 
the old seat, and "Here
I have you mine at last," she said, and swooned Under his kisses. When 
she came once more
To sight of him, she smiled in comfort knowing Herself 
laid as before
Close covered on his breast. And all her glowing
Youth answered him, and...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...banners beat and fly,
When death comes out of Araby,
Was Eldred in his hour.

But while he moved like a massacre
He murmured as in sleep,
And his words were all of low hedges
And little fields and sheep.

Even as he strode like a pestilence,
That strides from Rhine to Rome,
He thought how tall his beans might be
If ever he went home.

Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,
Dull as the distant chimes,
That thanked our God for good eating
And corn and quiet time...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...reets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal e...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter: others lay about the lawns, 
Of the older sort, and murmured that their May 
Was passing: what was learning unto them? 
They wished to marry; they could rule a house; 
Men hated learned women: but we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came 
Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 
That harmed not: then day droopt; the chapel bells 
Called us: we left the walks; we m...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down through the park: strange was the sight to me; 
For all the sloping pasture murmured, sown 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads: 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them with facts. One reared a font of stone 
And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 
The fountain of the moment, playing, now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 
Or steep-up spout whereon the g...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...lness gave no token, 
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" 
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore:" 
Merely this and nothing more. 30 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before. 
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice; 
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore; 
Let my heart be still a ...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...Like so many sundowners "out on the wallaby". 
When Moses, who led 'em, and taught 'em, and fed 'em, 
Was dying, he murmured, "A rorty old hoss you are: 
I give you command of the whole of the band" -- 
And handed the Government over to Joshua. 

But Moses told 'em before he died, 
"Wherever you are, whatever betide, 
Every year as the time draws near 
By lot or by rote choose you a goat, 
And let the high priest confess on the beast 
The sins of the people the worst ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...rude and worn disguise
She saw the inner form most bright and fair:
And then she had a charm of strange device,
Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone,
Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given
For such a charm, when Tithon became grey--
Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven
Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina
Had half (oh why not all?) the debt forgiven
Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay--
To any witch ...Read more of this...

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