Famous North Wind Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Fish Crier

by Carl Sandburg
 I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a
voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble
in January.
He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing
a joy identical with that of Pavlowa dancing.
His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish,
terribly glad that God made fish, and customers to
whom he may call his wares,...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time's ears
Youth's dreams hung singing, and Time's truth
Was half not harsh in the...Read more of this...

Clothes chapter X

by Kahlil Gibran
 And the weaver said, "Speak to us of Clothes." 

And he answered: 

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. 

And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. 

Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your...Read more of this...

Wash of Cold River

by Hilda Doolittle
 Wash of cold river 
in a glacial land, 
Ionian water, 
chill, snow-ribbed sand, 
drift of rare flowers, 
clear, with delicate shell- 
like leaf enclosing 
frozen lily-leaf, 
camellia texture, 
colder than a rose; 

wind-flower 
that keeps the breath 
of the north-wind -- 
these and none other; 

intimate thoughts and kind 
reach out to share 
the treasure of my mind, 
intimate...Read more of this...

The Last Word of a Blue Bird

by Robert Frost
 As told to a child


As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, "Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just...Read more of this...

Absence

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 WHEN from the craggy mountain's pathless steep,
Whose flinty brow hangs o'er the raging sea, 
My wand'ring eye beholds the foamy deep,
I mark the restless surge­and think of THEE. 
The curling waves, the passing breezes move, 
Changing and treach'rous as the breath of LOVE; 
The "sad similitude" awakes my smart, 
And thy dear image twines about my heart. 

When at...Read more of this...

Ideals

by Dimitris P Kraniotis
 Snow-covered mountains,
ancient monuments,
a north wind that nods to us,
a thought that flows,
images imbued
with hymns of history,
words on signs
with ideals of geometry....Read more of this...

Falltime

by Carl Sandburg
 GOLD of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to new cities?
What is there for you in...Read more of this...

Smoke

by Carl Sandburg
 I SIT in a chair and read the newspapers.

Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where cows are killed off amid hoarse barbecues vanish like finger-rings of smoke in a north wind.

I sit in a chair and read the newspapers....Read more of this...

The North Wind

by Anne Bronte
 That wind is from the North, I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know its language; thus is speaks to me --
'I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains -- and they still are free,
Still lonely,...Read more of this...

Heart O The North

by Robert William Service
 And when I come to the dim trail-end,
 I who have been Life's rover,
This is all I would ask, my friend,
 Over and over and over:

A little space on a stony hill
 With never another near me,
Sky o' the North that's vast and still,
 With a single star to cheer me;

Star that gleams on a moss-grey stone
 Graven by...Read more of this...

The Great Grey Plain

by Henry Lawson
 Out West, where the stars are brightest, 
Where the scorching north wind blows, 
And the bones of the dead gleam whitest, 
And the sun on a desert glows -- 
Yet within the selfish kingdom 
Where man starves man for gain, 
Where white men tramp for existence -- 
Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. 

No break in its awful horizon,...Read more of this...

The Sea to the Shore

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Lo, I have loved thee long, long have I yearned and entreated!
Tell me how I may win thee, tell me how I must woo.
Shall I creep to thy white feet, in guise of a humble lover ?
Shall I croon in mild petition, murmuring vows anew ? 

Shall I stretch my arms unto thee, biding thy maiden coyness,
Under the silver...Read more of this...

Panthea

by Oscar Wilde
 Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight, -
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.

For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse...Read more of this...

The Lure Of Little Voices

by Robert William Service
 There's a cry from out the loneliness -- oh, listen, Honey, listen!
 Do you hear it, do you fear it, you're a-holding of me so?
You're a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten --
 Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?

All a-begging me to leave you. Day and night they're pleading, praying,
...Read more of this...

Owen Aherne And His Dancers

by William Butler Yeats
 I

A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought
Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,
Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.
It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.

The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind despair,
The west wind made it pitiful, and the north...Read more of this...

Lament for Boromir

by J R R Tolkien
 Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows,
The West Wind comes walking, and about the walls it goes.
'What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?
Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?'
'I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey.
I saw him walk in...Read more of this...

The Boston Athenaeum

by Amy Lowell
 Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp...Read more of this...

The Owl

by Edward Thomas
 DOWNHILL I came, hungry, and yet not starved, 
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof 
Against the north wind; tired, yet so that rest 
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, 
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I. 
All of the night was quite barred out...Read more of this...

The Shepherds Dog

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I.

A Shepherd's Dog there was; and he
Was faithful to his master's will,
For well he lov'd his company,
Along the plain or up the hill;
All Seasons were, to him, the same
Beneath the Sun's meridian flame;
Or, when the wintry wind blew shrill and keen,
Still the Old Shepherd's Dog, was with his Master seen.


II. 

His form was shaggy clothed; yet he
Was of a...Read more of this...

The Return of Morgan and Fingal

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 And there we were together again— 
Together again, we three: 
Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all, 
They had come for the night with me. 

The spirit of joy was in Morgan’s wrist,
There were songs in Fingal’s throat; 
And secure outside, for the spray to drench, 
Was a tossed and empty boat. 

And there were the pipes, and there was the...Read more of this...

A Ramble in St. Jamess Park

by John Wilmot
 Much wine had passed, with grave discourse
Of who fucks who, and who does worse
(Such as you usually do hear
From those that diet at the Bear),
When I, who still take care to see
Drunkenness relieved by lechery,
Went out into St. James's Park
To cool my head and fire my heart.
But though St. James has th' honor on 't,
'Tis consecrate to prick and...Read more of this...

October

by Hilaire Belloc
 Look, how those steep woods on the mountain's face
Burn, burn against the sunset; now the cold
Invades our very noon: the year's grown old,
Mornings are dark, and evenings come apace.
The vines below have lost their purple grace,
And in Forreze the white wrack backward rolled,
Hangs to the hills tempestuous, fold on fold,
And moaning gusts make desolate all the place.

Mine host the...Read more of this...

Out Back

by Henry Lawson
 The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, 
The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, 
and the sheds were all cut out; 
The publican's words were short and few, 
and the publican's looks were black -- 
And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back. 

For...Read more of this...

Smoke and Steel

by Carl Sandburg
 SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist … in the slow twist … of the wind.

If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member North Wind 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