Famous Noons Poems by Famous Poets

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

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In The Forest

by Sarojini Naidu
 HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, 
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre 
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, 
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire. 


We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne 
The...Read more of this...

The Call of the Winds

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Ho, come out with the wind of spring,
And step it blithely in woodlands waking; 
Friend am I of each growing thing
From the gray sod into sunshine breaking; 
Mine is the magic of twilights dim, 
Of violets blue on the still pool's rim, 
Mine is the breath of the blossoms young 
Sweetest of fragrances storied or sung­
Come, ye earth-children, weary...Read more of this...

With Scindia to Delphi

by Rudyard Kipling
 More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story: --


The wreath of banquet overnight lay...Read more of this...

Alone

by James Joyce
 The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail. 

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame....Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 83. Dip down upon the northern shore

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Dip down upon the northern shore 
O sweet new-year delaying long;
Thou doest expectant nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?
Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speed well's darling blue,
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou...Read more of this...

An Autograph

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 I write my name as one, 
On sands by waves o'errun 
Or winter's frosted pane, 
Traces a record vain. 

Oblivion's blankness claims 
Wiser and better names, 
And well my own may pass 
As from the strand or glass. 

Wash on, O waves of time! 
Melt, noons, the frosty rime! 
Welcome the shadow vast, 
The silence that shall last! 

When...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4

by Alexander Pope
 But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd, 
And secret passions labour'd in her breast.
Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive,
Not scornful virgins who their charms survive,
Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss,
Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss,
Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die,
Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry,
E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair,
As thou, sad virgin!...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...

From The Graveyard By The Sea

by Delmore Schwartz
 (After Valery)


This hushed surface where the doves parade
Amid the pines vibrates, amid the graves;
Here the noon's justice unites all fires when
The sea aspires forever to begin again and again.
O what a gratification comes after long meditation
O satisfaction, after long meditation or ratiocination
Upon the calm of the gods
Upon the divine serenity, in luxurious contemplation!

What pure toil of perfect lightning enwombs,...Read more of this...

Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we...Read more of this...

Magpiety

by Philip Levine
 You pull over to the shoulder
 of the two-lane
road and sit for a moment wondering
 where you were going
in such a hurry. The valley is burned
 out, the oaks
dream day and night of rain
 that never comes.
At noon or just before noon
 the short shadows
are gray and hold what little
 life survives.
In the still heat the engine
 clicks, although
the...Read more of this...

In Age

by William Lisle Bowles
 And art thou he, now "fallen on evil days," 
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek, 
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak! 
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,-- 
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze 
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek, 
As in the sight of God intent...Read more of this...

Puritans

by Richard Wilbur
 Sidling upon the river, the white boat
Has volleyed with its cannon all the morning,
Shaken the shore towns like a Judgment warning,
Telling the palsied water its demand
That the crime come to the top again, and float,
That the sunk murder rise to the light and land.

Blam! In the noon's perfected brilliance burn
Brief blooms of flame, which soil away in smoke;
And down...Read more of this...

Epitaph on a Hare

by William Cowper
 Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue,
Nor swiftewd greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’,

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nurs’d with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confin’d,
Was still a wild Jack-hare.

Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance ev’ry night,
He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.

His diet was of...Read more of this...

Dirge

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Place this bunch of mignonette
In her cold, dead hand;
When the golden sun is set,
Where the poplars stand,
Bury her from sun and day,
Lay my little love away
From my sight.
She was like a modest flower
Blown in sunny June,
Warm as sun at noon's high hour,
Chaster than the moon.
Ah, her day was brief and bright,
Earth has lost a star of light;
She is dead.
Softly breathe...Read more of this...

Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones--
In fact, he's remarkably fat.
He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs,
For he's the St. James's Street Cat!
He's the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street
In his coat of fastidious black:
No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers
Or such an impreccable back.
In the whole of St. James's the smartest of...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...

Answer

by Peter Huchel
 Between two nights
the brief day.
The farm is there.
And in the thicket, a snare
the hunter set for us.

Noon’s desert.
It still warms the stone.
Chirping in the wind,
buzz of a guitar
down the hillside.

The slow match
of withered foliage
glows against the wall.
Salt-white air.
Fall’s arrowheads,
the crane’s migration.

In bright tree limbs
the tolling hour has faded.
Upon their clockwork
spiders lay
the veils of dead brides....Read more of this...

Forever

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 I 

With you I shall ever be; 
Over land and sea 
My thoughts will companion you; 
With yours shall my laughter chime, 
And my step keep time 
In the dusk and dew 
With yours in blithesome rhyme; 
In all of your joy shall I rejoice, 
On my lips your sorrow shall find a voice, 
And when your tears in...Read more of this...

In an Old Town Garden

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Shut from the clamor of the street
By an old wall with lichen grown,
It holds apart from jar and fret
A peace and beauty all its own. 

The freshness of the springtime rains
And dews of morning linger here;
It holds the glow of summer noons
And ripest twilights of the year. 

Above its bloom the evening stars
Look down at closing of the day,
And...Read more of this...

Peace, for whose presence did we erewhile call

by Hafez
Peace, for whose presence did we erewhile call
With cry sincere, vowing (God knoweth, those
Prótests how passionate were) to love thee all,
Yet when thou camest, pander’d to thy foes
Weaklier than ever, now again the throes
Convulse our being; now, Peace, may’st thou see,
This lust-devoted land is not for thee.

Farewell! Small wonder is it if thou flee
Such faithlessness, yet doth thy memory still
Dwell...Read more of this...

I thought our joy benumbed for ever

by Emile Verhaeren
I thought our joy benumbed for ever, like a sun faded before it was night, on the day that illness with its leaden arms dragged me heavily towards its chair of weariness.
The flowers and the garden were fear or deception to me; my eyes suffered to see the white noons flaming, and my two hands, my hands, seemed, before their...Read more of this...

Ambulances

by Philip Larkin
Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and...Read more of this...

Coleur de Rose

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 I want more lives in which to love 
This world so full of beauty, 
I want more days to use the ways 
I know of doing duty; 
I ask no greater joy than this 
(So much I am life's lover,) 
When I reach age to turn the page 
And read the story over, 
(Oh love stay near!)

Oh rapturous promise...Read more of this...

A light exists in spring

by Emily Dickinson
A light exists in spring
   Not present on the year
At any other period.
   When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
   On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
   But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
   It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
   It almost speaks...Read more of this...

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