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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The Gentle Traveller

by Henry Van Dyke
 Through many a land your journey ran,
And showed the best the world can boast:
Now tell me, traveller, if you can,
The place that pleased you most." 

She laid her hands upon my breast,
And murmured gently in my ear, 
"The place I loved and liked the best
Was in your arms, my dear!"...Read more of this...

I Hardly Remember

by Robert Graves
 I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you
floats in some remote current of my blood.
I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge
like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up.

It was a spoiled remnant of the South. A beach
without fishing boats, where the sun was for sale.
A stretch of shore, now a jungle...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Wooing

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 "As unto the bow the cord is, 
So unto the man is woman; 
Though she bends him, she obeys him, 
Though she draws him, yet she follows; 
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha 
Said within himself and pondered, 
Much perplexed by various feelings, 
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
In...Read more of this...

The Happy Townland

by William Butler Yeats
 There's many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two,
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.

The little fox...Read more of this...

The Changeling ( From The Tent on the Beach )

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 FOR the fairest maid in Hampton
They needed not to search,
Who saw young Anna favor
Come walking into church,--

Or bringing from the meadows,
At set of harvest-day,
The frolic of the blackbirds,
The sweetness of the hay.

Now the weariest of all mothers,
The saddest two years' bride,
She scowls in the face of her husband,
And spurns her child aside.

"Rake out the red coals, goodman,--
For there the...Read more of this...

The Song of Hiawatha: X

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 X. Hiawatha's Wooing

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!"

Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In the land of the Dacotahs.

"Wed a maiden of...Read more of this...

The Voice of the Waters

by George William Russell
 WHERE the Greyhound River windeth through a loneliness so deep,
Scarce a wild fowl shakes the quiet that the purple boglands keep,
Only God exults in silence over fields no man may reap.


Where the silver wave with sweetness fed the tiny lives of grass
I was bent above, my image mirrored in the fleeting glass,
And a voice from out the water through...Read more of this...

Godolphin Horne

by Hilaire Belloc
 Who was cursed with the Sin of Pride, and Became a Boot-Black. 

Godolphin Horne was Nobly Born;
He held the Human Race in Scorn,
And lived with all his Sisters where
His father lived, in Berkeley Square.
And oh! The Lad was Deathly Proud!
He never shook your Hand or Bowed,
But merely smirked and nodded thus:
How perfectly ridiculous!
Alas! That such Affected Tricks
Should flourish in...Read more of this...

Home Burial

by Robert Frost
 He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see
From up there always -- for I want to know.'
She turned and sank upon her...Read more of this...

How Butterflies Are Born

by Victor Hugo
 ("Comme le matin rit sur les roses.") 
 
 {Bk. I. xii.} 


 The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers 
 The tearful roses—lo, the little lovers— 
 That kiss the buds and all the flutterings 
 In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings 
 That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide 
...Read more of this...

The Djinns

by Victor Hugo
 ("Murs, ville et port.") 
 
 {XXVIII., Aug. 28, 1828.} 


 Town, tower, 
 Shore, deep, 
 Where lower 
 Cliff's steep; 
 Waves gray, 
 Where play 
 Winds gay, 
 All sleep. 
 
 Hark! a sound, 
 Far and slight, 
 Breathes around 
 On the night 
 High and higher, 
 Nigh and nigher, 
...Read more of this...

Deacon Jones' Grievance

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I 've been watchin' of 'em, parson,
An' I 'm sorry fur to say
'At my mind is not contented
With the loose an' keerless way
'At the young folks treat the music;
'T ain't the proper sort o' choir.
Then I don't believe in Christuns
A-singin' hymns for hire.
But I never would 'a' murmured
An' the matter might 'a' gone
Ef it was n't fur the antics
'At I've...Read more of this...

Look What You Did Christopher!

by Ogden Nash
 In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
And to prove to the people, by actual test,
You could get to the East by sailing West.
Somebody said, Sail on! Sail on!
And studied China and China's lingo,
And cried from the bow, There's China now!
And promptly bumped into San Domingo.
Somebody...Read more of this...

Love And Madness

by Thomas Campbell
 Hark ! from the battlements of yonder tower
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour !
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep !

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried !
Oh ! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the...Read more of this...

I Heard Immanuel Singing

by Vachel Lindsay
 (The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)


I heard Immanuel singing 
Within his own good lands,
I saw him bend above his harp.
I watched his wandering hands
Lost amid the harp-strings;
Sweet, sweet I heard him play.
His wounds were altogether healed.
Old things had passed away.

All things were new, but music.
The blood of David ran
Within...Read more of this...

Paris

by Alan Seeger
 First, London, for its myriads; for its height, 
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; 
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths 
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . . 


Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days 
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays 
Than, having beauty and your twenty years, 
You have the means...Read more of this...

To A Fallen Elm

by John Clare
 Old Elm that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle to thy root
How did I love to hear...Read more of this...

On the Funeral of Charles the First

by William Lisle Bowles
 The castle clock had tolled midnight:
With mattock and with spade,
And silent, by the torches' light,
His corse in earth we laid.

The coffin bore his name, that those
Of other years might know,
When earth its secrets should disclose,
Whose bones were laid below.

"Peace to the dead" no children sung,
Slow pacing up the nave,--
No prayers were read, no knell was rung,
As deep we dug...Read more of this...

How MGinnis went missing

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Let us cease our idle chatter, 
Let the tears bedew our cheek, 
For a man from Tallangatta 
Has been missing for a week. 
Where the roaring flooded Murray 
Covered all the lower land, 
There he started in a hurry, 
With a bottle in his hand. 

And his fate is hid for ever, 
But the public seem to think 
That...Read more of this...

The Wild Flowers Song

by William Blake
 As I wandered the forest,
The green leaves among,
I heard a Wild Flower
Singing a song.

'I slept in the earth
In the silent night,
I murmured my fears
And I felt delight.

'In the morning I went
As rosy as morn,
To seek for new joy;
But oh! met with scorn.'...Read more of this...

Realisation

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot; 
Or so the unperceiving thought, 
Who looked no deeper than her face, 
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace –
No farther than her humble grate, 
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad; 
So much of love her spirit had, 
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near...Read more of this...

The Three Songs

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 The poet sang of a battle-field
Where doughty deeds were done,
Where stout blows rang on helm and shield
And a kingdom's fate was spun
With the scarlet thread of victory,
And honor from death's grim revelry
Like a flame-red flower was won!
So bravely he sang that all who heard
With the sting of the fight and the triumph were stirred,
And they cried, "Let us blazon...Read more of this...

Narva and Mored

by Thomas Chatterton
 Recite the loves of Narva and Mored 
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said. 
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung, 
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung: 
In all the mystic mazes of the dance, 
The youths of Banny's burning sands advance, 
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind, 
And rides upon the pinions of the...Read more of this...

I Hardly Remember

by Rafael Guillen
 I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you
floats in some remote current of my blood.
I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge
like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up.

It was a spoiled remnant of the South. A beach
without fishing boats, where the sun was for sale.
A stretch of shore, now a jungle...Read more of this...

Secrets is a daily word

by Emily Dickinson
 "Secrets" is a daily word
Yet does not exist --
Muffled -- it remits surmise --
Murmured -- it has ceased --
Dungeoned in the Human Breast
Doubtless secrets lie --
But that Grate inviolate --
Goes nor comes away
Nothing with a Tongue or Ear --
Secrets stapled there
Will emerge but once -- and dumb --
To the Sepulchre --...Read more of this...

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