Famous Natural Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

From an Essay on Man

by Alexander Pope
 Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to...Read more of this...

natural therapy

by Rg Gregory
 the great thing about the tall white daisy
is that it knows how to laugh at itself

some flowers for all their rich displays
won't preen themselves without a primness

in their sap - nor let their stalks abide
bending this way that way in the thick wind

the large daisy is happy to be slapdash
is not snooty about the company it keeps

it does have...Read more of this...

Juvenilia An Ode to Natural Beauty

by Alan Seeger
 There is a power whose inspiration fills 
Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought, 
Like airy dew ere any drop distils, 
Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught 
Unseen which interfused throughout the whole 
Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul. 
Now when, the drift of old desire renewing, 
Warm tides flow northward over valley and field, 
When...Read more of this...

To Coleridge

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou dost hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee, but they
Cast,...Read more of this...

From: A King Of Kings A King Among The Kings

by Delmore Schwartz
 Come, let us rejoice in James Joyce, in the greatness of this poet,
 king, and king of poets
For he is our poor dead king, he is the monarch and Caesar of English,
 he is the veritable King of the King's English

 The English of the life of the city,
 and the English of music;

Let them rejoice because he rejoiced...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid from Endymion

by John Keats
 O SORROW! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?-- 
 To give maiden blushes 
 To the white rose bushes? 
 Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

 O Sorrow! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?-- 
 To give the glow-worm light? 
 Or, on...Read more of this...

Spensers Ireland

by Marianne Moore
 has not altered;--
a place as kind as it is green,
the greenest place I've never seen.
Every name is a tune.
Denunciations do not affect
the culprit; nor blows, but it
is torture to him to not be spoken to.
They're natural,--
the coat, like Venus'
mantle lined with stars,
buttoned close at the neck,-the sleeves new from disuse.

If in Ireland
they play the harp backward at need,
and gather...Read more of this...

A Poets Voice XV

by Kahlil Gibran
 Part One


The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. 

My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. 

Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct...Read more of this...

Exchanging Hats

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady's hat,
--oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist

in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.

Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that...Read more of this...

A Leaf for Hand in Hand

by Walt Whitman
 A LEAF for hand in hand! 
You natural persons old and young! 
You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi! 
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs! 
You twain! And all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in...Read more of this...

Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law

by Adrienne Rich
  1

You, once a belle in Shreveport,
with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud,
still have your dresses copied from that time,
and play a Chopin prelude
called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections
float like perfume through the memory."

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake,
heavy with useless experience, rich
with suspicion, rumor, fantasy,
crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge
of mere fact. In the prime of your life.

Nervy, glowering,...Read more of this...

Sunset at Night -- is natural

by Emily Dickinson
 Sunset at Night -- is natural --
But Sunset on the Dawn
Reverses Nature -- Master --
So Midnight's -- due -- at Noon.

Eclipses be -- predicted --
And Science bows them in --
But do one face us suddenly --
Jehovah's Watch -- is wrong....Read more of this...

Sonnet LIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LIII. Ben sapev' io che natural consiglio. FLEEING FROM LOVE, HE FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF HIS MINISTERS.  Full well I know that natural wisdom nought,Love, 'gainst thy power, in any age prevail'd,For snares oft set, fond oaths that ever fail'd,Sore proofs of thy sharp talons long had taught;But lately,...Read more of this...

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...

Natural Music

by Robinson Jeffers
 The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers,
(Winter has given them gold for silver
To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks)
>From different throats intone one language.
So I believe if we were strong enough to listen without
Divisions of desire and terror
To the storm of the sick nations, the rage of the hunger...Read more of this...

The Incarnate One

by Edwin Muir
 The windless northern surge, the sea-gull's scream,
And Calvin's kirk crowning the barren brae.
I think of Giotto the Tuscan shepherd's dream,
Christ, man and creature in their inner day.
How could our race betray
The Image, and the Incarnate One unmake
Who chose this form and fashion for our sake? 

The Word made flesh here is made word again
A word made word in flourish...Read more of this...

Natural Magic

by George William Russell
 WE air tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.


When you break upon our study
Vanish all our frosty cares;
As the diamond deep grows ruddy,
Filled with morning unawares.


With the stuff that dreams are made of
But an empty house we build:
Glooms we are ourselves afraid of,
By the ancient starlight chilled.


All unwise...Read more of this...

Song of the Indian Maid

by John Keats
Song of the Indian Maid 

O SORROW! 
Why dost borrow 
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?¡ª 
To give maiden blushes 
To the white rose bushes? 5 
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

O Sorrow! 
Why dost borrow 
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?¡ª 
To give the glow-worm light? 10 
Or, on a moonless night, 
To...Read more of this...

The Lily In A Crystal

by Robert Herrick
 You have beheld a smiling rose
When virgins' hands have drawn
O'er it a cobweb-lawn:
And here, you see, this lily shows,
Tomb'd in a crystal stone,
More fair in this transparent case
Than when it grew alone,
And had but single grace.

You see how cream but naked is,
Nor dances in the eye
Without a strawberry;
Or some fine tincture, like to this,
Which draws the sight thereto,
More by...Read more of this...

192. Song—The Bonie Lass of Albany

by Robert Burns
 MY 1 heart is wae, and unco wae,
 To think upon the raging sea,
That roars between her gardens green
 An’ the bonie Lass of Albany.


This lovely maid’s of royal blood
 That ruled Albion’s kingdoms three,
But oh, alas! for her bonie face,
 They’ve wrang’d the Lass of Albany.


In the rolling tide of spreading Clyde
 There sits an isle of high...Read more of this...

Blight

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give me truths;
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition. If I knew
Only the herbs and simples of the wood,
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony,
Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,
Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew,
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods
Draw untold juices from the common earth,
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell
Their fragrance, and...Read more of this...

Were natural mortal lady

by Emily Dickinson
 Were natural mortal lady
Who had so little time
To pack her trunk and order
The great exchange of clime --

How rapid, how momentous --
What exigencies were --
But nature will be ready
And have an hour to spare.

To make some trifle fairer
That was too fair before --
Enchanting by remaining,
And by departure more....Read more of this...

Natural Theology

by Rudyard Kipling
  Primitive
I ate my fill of a whale that died
 And stranded after a month at sea. . . .
There is a pain in my inside.
 Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
 Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith :
 Look how the...Read more of this...

Risus Dei

by Thomas Edward Brown
 Methinks in Him there dwells alway
A sea of laughter very deep,
Where the leviathans leap,
And little children play,
Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;
But in the outer bay
The strong man drives the wedge
Of polished limbs,
And swims.
Yet there is one will say:--
'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'--
And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?

One saith that God...Read more of this...

Sonnet 42 - My future will not copy fair my past

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 'My future will not copy fair my past'—
I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding, at thy sight, my...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Natural poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace