Famous Mute Poems by Famous Poets

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

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For Sidney Bechet

by Philip Larkin
 That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes
Like New Orleans reflected on the water,
And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes,

Building for some a legendary Quarter
Of balconies, flower-baskets and quadrilles,
Everyone making love and going shares--

Oh, play that thing! Mute glorious Storyvilles
Others may license, grouping around their chairs
Sporting-house girls like circus tigers (priced

Far above rubies) to pretend their fads,
While scholars manqués...Read more of this...

Good Friday 2001 Riding North

by Jennifer Reeser
 Yellow makes a play for green among
the rows of some poor farmer's field outside
the Memphis city limits' northern edge.
A D. J. plays The Day He Wore My Crown,
not knowing it entices into tears
this woman never once disposed to travel
the holiday before. My children squander
unleavened bread brought forth from Taco Bell.
What sacrifice of mine could be worth mention?
Enshroud it. Christ's...Read more of this...

The Lake

by Alphonse de Lamartine
Towards new and different shores forever driven onward,
Through endless darkness always borne away,
Upon the sea of time can we not lie at anchor
For but a single day?

Oh lake, the year has scarce run once more round its track,
And by these waves she had to see again,
Look! I have come alone to sit upon this rock
You saw her sit on then.

Beneath...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...

Mute Opinion

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

I traversed a dominion 
Whose spokesmen spake out strong 
Their purpose and opinion 
Through pulpit, press, and song. 
I scarce had means to note there 
A large-eyed few, and dumb, 
Who thought not as those thought there 
That stirred the heat and hum. 

II 

When, grown a Shade, beholding 
That land in lifetime trode, 
To learn if its...Read more of this...

Mute thy Coronation

by Emily Dickinson
 Mute thy Coronation --
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I --...Read more of this...

324. Song—The Charms of Lovely Davies

by Robert Burns
 O HOW shall I, unskilfu’, try
 The poet’s occupation?
The tunefu’ powers, in happy hours,
 That whisper inspiration;
Even they maun dare an effort mair
 Than aught they ever gave us,
Ere they rehearse, in equal verse,
 The charms o’ lovely Davies.


Each eye it cheers when she appears,
 Like Phoebus in the morning,
When past the shower, and every flower
 The garden is...Read more of this...

Mute thy Coronation

by Emily Dickinson
 Mute thy Coronation --
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I --...Read more of this...

Mute thy Coronation

by Emily Dickinson
 Mute thy Coronation --
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I --...Read more of this...

Black Rook In Rainy Weather

by Sylvia Plath
 On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky,...Read more of this...

A first Mute Coming --

by Emily Dickinson
 A first Mute Coming --
In the Stranger's House --
A first fair Going --
When the Bells rejoice --

A first Exchange -- of
What hath mingled -- been --
For Lot -- exhibited to
Faith -- alone --...Read more of this...

The Ideals

by Friedrich von Schiller
 And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,
With all thy magic phantasy,--
With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,
Wilt thou with all forever fly?
Can naught delay thine onward motion,
Thou golden time of life's young dream?
In vain! eternity's wide ocean
Ceaselessly drowns thy rolling stream.

The glorious suns my youth enchanting
Have set in never-ending night;
Those blest ideals now are wanting
That swelled...Read more of this...

The Gods Of Greece

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world--a world how lovely then!--
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful...Read more of this...

Yvytot

by Eugene Field
 Where wail the waters in their flaw
A spectre wanders to and fro,
And evermore that ghostly shore
Bemoans the heir of Yvytot.

Sometimes, when, like a fleecy pall,
The mists upon the waters fall,
Across the main float shadows twain
That do not heed the spectre's call.

The king his son of Yvytot
Stood once and saw the waters go
Boiling around with hissing sound
The sullen phantom rocks...Read more of this...

Young and kindly spring

by Emile Verhaeren
Young and kindly spring who clothes our garden with beauty makes lucid our voices and words, and steeps them in his limpidity.
The breeze and the lips of the leaves babble, and slowly shed in us the syllables of their brightness.
But the best in us turns away and flees material words; a mute and mild and simple rapture, better than all...Read more of this...

Mesmerism

by Robert Browning
 I.

All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?

II.

If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat's in the water-butt---

III.

And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is...Read more of this...

Sonnet 28 - My letters! all dead paper mute and white!

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,—he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
Yet I wept...Read more of this...

In Salutation to the Eternal Peace

by Sarojini Naidu
 Men say the world is full of fear and hate,
And all life's ripening harvest-fields await
The restless sickle of relentless fate.

But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born,
When from the climbing terraces of corn
I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn.

What care I for the world's desire and pride,
Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide,
The homing pigeons...Read more of this...

Mute thy Coronation

by Emily Dickinson
 Mute thy Coronation --
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I --...Read more of this...

She slept beneath a tree

by Emily Dickinson
 She slept beneath a tree --
Remembered but by me.
I touched her Cradle mute --
She recognized the foot --
Put on her carmine suit
And see!...Read more of this...

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

by Matthew Arnold
 Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side. 

The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the...Read more of this...

The Little Mute Boy

by Federico García Lorca
 The litle boy was looking for his voice.
(The King of the crickets had it.)
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.

I do not want it for speaking with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger.

In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.

(The captive...Read more of this...

Sonnet to the Memory of Miss Maria Linley

by Mary Darby Robinson
 So bends beneath the storm yon balmy flow'r,
Whose spicy blossoms once perfum'd the gale;
So press'd with tears reclines yon lily pale,
Obedient to the rude and beating show'r. 

Still is the LARK, that hov'ring o'er yon spray,
With jocund carol usher'd in the morn;
And mute the NIGHTINGALE, whose tender lay
Melted the feeling mind with sounds forlorn: 

More sweet, MARIA, was thy...Read more of this...

Mortua Est

by Mihai Eminescu
Two candles, tall sentry, beside an earth mound, 
A dream with wings broken that trail to the ground,  
Loud flung from the belfry calamitous chime... 
'Tis thus that you passed o'er the bound'ries of time. 

Gone by are the hours when the heavens entire 
Flowed rivers of milk and grew flowers of fire, 
When the thunderous clouds were but...Read more of this...

Morns like these -- we parted

by Emily Dickinson
 Morns like these -- we parted --
Noons like these -- she rose --
Fluttering first -- then firmer
To her fair repose.

Never did she lisp it --
It was not for me --
She -- was mute from transport --
I -- from agony --

Till -- the evening nearing
One the curtains drew --
Quick! A Sharper rustling!
And this linnet flew!...Read more of this...

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