Famous Near Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Go not too near a House of Rose --

by Emily Dickinson
 Go not too near a House of Rose --
The depredation of a Breeze --
Or inundation of a Dew
Alarms its walls away --

Nor try to tie the Butterfly,
Nor climb the Bars of Ecstasy,
In insecurity to lie
Is Joy's insuring quality....Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart

by Rabindranath Tagore
 She is near to my heart as the meadow-flower to the earth; she is
sweet to me as sleep is to tired limbs. My love for her is my life
flowing in its fullness, like a river in autumn flood, running with
serene abandonment. My songs are one with my love, like the murmur
of a stream, that sings with all its waves...Read more of this...

Stanzas Written in Dejection near Naples

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
THE sun is warm the sky is clear  
The waves are dancing fast and bright  
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
The purple noon's transparent might: 
The breath of the moist earth is light 5 
Around its unexpanded buds; 
Like many a voice of one delight¡ª 
The winds' the birds' the ocean-floods'¡ª 
The city's voice itself is soft...Read more of this...

Mystic shadow bending near me

by Stephen Crane
 Mystic shadow, bending near me,
Who art thou?
Whence come ye?
And -- tell me -- is it fair
Or is the truth bitter as eaten fire?

Tell me!
Fear not that I should quaver.
For I dare -- I dare.
Then, tell me!...Read more of this...

Chapel Deacon

by R S Thomas
 Who put that crease in your soul,
Davies, ready this fine morning
For the staid chapel, where the Book's frown
Sobers the sunlight? Who taught you to pray
And scheme at once, your eyes turning
Skyward, while your swift mind weighs
Your heifer's chances in the next town's
Fair on Thursday? Are your heart's coals
Kindled for God, or is the burning
Of your lean cheeks because you...Read more of this...

Futility

by Robert William Service
 Dusting my books I spent a busy day:
Not ancient toes, time-hallowed and unread,
but modern volumes, classics in their way,
whose makers now are numbered with the dead;
Men of a generation more than mine,
With whom I tattled, battled and drank wine. 

I worshipped them, rejoiced in their success,
Grudging them not the gold that goes with fame.
I thought them near-immortal, I confess,
And...Read more of this...

Il Penseroso

by John Milton
 Hence, vain deluding Joys,
............The brood of Folly without father bred!
How little you bested
............Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
............And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
............As the gay motes that people the sun-beams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage...Read more of this...

Near Keokuk

by Carl Sandburg
 THIRTY-TWO Greeks are dipping their feet in a creek.
Sloshing their bare feet in a cool flow of clear water.
All one midsummer day ten hours the Greeks
 stand in leather shoes shoveling gravel.
Now they hold their toes and ankles
 to the drift of running water.
Then they go to the bunk cars
 and eat mulligan and prune sauce,
Smoke one or two...Read more of this...

Rome at the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats

by Thomas Hardy
 Who, then, was Cestius, 
 And what is he to me? - 
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous 
 One thought alone brings he. 

 I can recall no word 
 Of anything he did; 
For me he is a man who died and was interred 
 To leave a pyramid 

 Whose purpose was exprest 
 Not with...Read more of this...

329. Verses on the destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig

by Robert Burns
 AS on the banks o’ wandering Nith,
 Ae smiling simmer morn I stray’d,
And traced its bonie howes and haughs,
 Where linties sang and lammies play’d,
I sat me down upon a craig,
 And drank my fill o’ fancy’s dream,
When from the eddying deep below,
 Up rose the genius of the stream.


Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow,
 And troubled, like...Read more of this...

This Heart that Flutters Near My Heart

by James Joyce
 This heart that flutters near my heart 
My hope and all my riches is, 
Unhappy when we draw apart 
And happy between kiss and kiss: 
My hope and all my riches -- - yes! -- - 
And all my happiness. 

For there, as in some mossy nest 
The wrens will divers treasures keep, 
I laid those treasures I possessed...Read more of this...

To The Memory Of Mr Oldham

by John Dryden
 Farewell, too little and too lately known,
Whom I began to think and call my own;
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
To the same goal did both our studies drive;
The last set out the soonest did arrive.
Thus...Read more of this...

Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me

by William Morris
 Love is enough: draw near and behold me
Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter,
And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after;
For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me
And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter.
--Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not! 

Cry...Read more of this...

Near But Far Away

by William Morris
 She wavered, stopped and turned, methought her eyes, 
The deep grey windows of her heart, were wet, 
Methought they softened with a new regret 
To note in mine unspoken miseries, 
And as a prayer from out my heart did rise 
And struggled on my lips in shame's strong net, 
She stayed me, and cried "Brother!" our lips met, 
Her...Read more of this...

Resentment Near the Jade Stairs

by Li Po
 Dew whitens the jade stairs.
This late, it soaks her gauze stockings.

She lowers her crystal blind to watch
the breaking, glass-clear moon of autumn....Read more of this...

Sonnet 136: If thy soul check thee that I come so near

by William Shakespeare
 If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
And will thy soul knows is admitted there;
Thus far for love, my love suit, sweet, fulfil.
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.
In things of great receipt with case we prove
Among a...Read more of this...

Written near a Port on a Dark Evening

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, 
Night on the ocean settles dark and mute, 
Save where is heard the repercussive roar 
Of drowsy billows on the rugged foot 
Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone 
Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell 
The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone 
Singing the hour, and bidding "Strike...Read more of this...

Except the Heaven had come so near

by Emily Dickinson
 Except the Heaven had come so near --
So seemed to choose My Door --
The Distance would not haunt me so --
I had not hoped -- before --

But just to hear the Grace depart --
I never thought to see --
Afflicts me with a Double loss --
'Tis lost -- and lost to me --...Read more of this...

307. Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson

by Robert Burns
 O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi’ a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
 O’er hurcheon hides,
And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie
 Wi’ thy auld sides!


He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e’er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn,
 By wood and wild,
Where haply, Pity strays forlorn,
 Frae man...Read more of this...

Know You The River NEar To Grez

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 KNOW you the river near to Grez,
A river deep and clear?
Among the lilies all the way,
That ancient river runs to-day
From snowy weir to weir.

Old as the Rhine of great renown,
She hurries clear and fast,
She runs amain by field and town
From south to north, from up to down,
To present on from past.

The love I hold was borne by her;
And now,...Read more of this...

Near Avalon

by William Morris
 A ship with shields before the sun,
Six maidens round the mast,
A red-gold crown on every one,
A green gown on the last.

The fluttering green banners there
Are wrought with ladies' heads most fair,
And a portraiture of Guenevere
The middle of each sail doth bear.

A ship with sails before the wind,
And round the helm six knights,
Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,
They pass...Read more of this...

In A Eweleaze Near Weatherbury

by Thomas Hardy
 THE years have gathered grayly
Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gayly
Love's fitful ecstasies!
But despite the term as teacher,
I remain what I was then
In each essential feature
Of the fantasies of men.

Yet I note the little chisel
Of ever-napping Time,
Defacing ghast and grizzel
The blazon of my prime.
When at night he thinks me sleeping,
I feel him boring sly
Within my bones,...Read more of this...

Near The Wall Of A House

by Yehuda Amichai
 Near the wall of a house painted
to look like stone,
I saw visions of God.

A sleepless night that gives others a headache
gave me flowers
opening beautifully inside my brain.

And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a human being
and brought back home again.

Love is not the last room: there are others
after it, the whole length of the corridor
that...Read more of this...

The Rebel Surprise Near Tamai

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 22nd of March, in the year 1885,
That the Arabs rushed like a mountain torrent in full drive,
And quickly attacked General M'Neill's transport-zereba,
But in a short time they were forced to withdraw. 

And in the suddenness of surprise the men were carried away,
Also camels, mules, and horses were thrown into wild disarray,
By thousands of the Arabs that...Read more of this...

Draw up your chair near mine

by Emile Verhaeren
Draw up your chair near mine, and stretch your hands out towards the hearth that I may see between your fingers the old flame burning; and watch the fire quietly with your eyes that fear no light, that they may be for me still franker when a quick and flashing ray strikes to their depths, illuminating them.
Oh! how beautiful and...Read more of this...

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