Famous Orb Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet XXIV: O Thou! Meek Orb

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O thou! meek Orb! that stealing o'er the dale
Cheer'st with thy modest beams the noon of night!
On the smooth lake diffusing silv'ry light,
Sublimely still, and beautifully pale!
What can thy cool and placid eye avail,
Where fierce despair absorbs the mental sight,
While inbred glooms the vagrant thoughts invite,
To tempt the gulph where howling fiends assail?
O, Night! all nature owns thy temper'd...Read more of this...

Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling

by Walt Whitman
 THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon! 
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand, 
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam, 
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue; 
O sun of noon rufulgent! my special word to thee.

Hear me illustrious! 
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee, 
Even as basking babe, then...Read more of this...

Thoughts On The Shape Of The Human Body

by Rupert Brooke
 How can we find? how can we rest? how can
We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man?
We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate,
Who love the unloving and lover hate,
Forget the moment ere the moment slips,
Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips,
Who want, and know not what we want, and cry
With crooked mouths for Heaven, and...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXXII. Tra quantunque leggiadre donne e belle. ALL NATURE WOULD BE IN DARKNESS WERE SHE, ITS SUN, TO PERISH.  Where'er she moves, whatever dames among,Beauteous or graceful, matchless she below.With her fair face she makes all others showDim, as the day's bright orb night's starry throng.And Love still whispers, with...Read more of this...

Solid Ironical Rolling Orb

by Walt Whitman
 SOLID, ironical, rolling orb! 
Master of all, and matter of fact!—at last I accept your terms; 
Bringing to practical, vulgar tests, of all my ideal dreams, 
And of me, as lover and hero....Read more of this...

To Thee Old Cause!

by Walt Whitman
 TO thee, old Cause! 
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause! 
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea! 
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands! 
After a strange, sad war—great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought,
 for thee;) 
These chants for thee—the eternal march of thee. 

Thou orb of many orbs! 
Thou seething...Read more of this...

Fantasie -- To Laura

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compelling
Bodies to unite in one blest whole--
Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magic
By which soul rejoins its kindred soul!

See! it teaches yonder roving planets
Round the sun to fly in endless race;
And as children play around their mother,
Checkered circles round the orb to trace.

Every rolling star, by thirst tormented,
Drinks with joy its bright and golden...Read more of this...

The Last Rose

by John Davidson
 'O WHICH is the last rose?' 
A blossom of no name. 
At midnight the snow came; 
At daybreak a vast rose, 
In darkness unfurl'd, 
O'er-petall'd the world. 

Its odourless pallor 
Blossom'd forlorn, 
Till radiant valour 
Establish'd the morn-- 
Till the night 
Was undone 
In her fight 
With the sun. 

The brave orb in state rose, 
And crimson he shone...Read more of this...

Poem With Refrains

by Robert Pinsky
 The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer
Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began
With someone dying.

 When her mother died,
My mother refused to attend the funeral--
In fact, she sulked in her tent all through the...Read more of this...

The Iron Gate

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?

Old age, the graybeard! Well,...Read more of this...

To the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory

by Phillis Wheatley
 To cultivate in ev'ry noble mind
Habitual grace, and sentiments refin'd,
Thus while you strive to mend the human heart,
Thus while the heav'nly precepts you impart,
O may each bosom catch the sacred fire,
And youthful minds to Virtue's throne aspire!
When God's eternal ways you set in sight,
And Virtue shines in all her native light,
In vain would Vice her works in night conceal,
For...Read more of this...

A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

by James Thomson
 Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...

Queen and Huntress

by Ben Jonson
 Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto...Read more of this...

The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2

by Alexander Pope
 Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain, 
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,
Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams
Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.
Fair nymphs, and well-dress'd youths around her shone,
But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
Her lively...Read more of this...

A Broadway Pageant

by Walt Whitman
 1
OVER the western sea, hither from Niphon come, 
Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys, 
Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive, 
Ride to-day through Manhattan. 

Libertad!
I do not know whether others behold what I behold, 
In the procession, along with the nobles of Asia, the errand-bearers, 
Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching; 
But...Read more of this...

The Fugitive

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Oft have I seen yon Solitary Man
Pacing the upland meadow. On his brow
Sits melancholy, mark'd with decent pride,
As it would fly the busy, taunting world,
And feed upon reflection. Sometimes, near
The foot of an old Tree, he takes his seat
And with the page of legendary lore
Cheats the dull hour, while Evening's sober eye
Looks tearful as it closes. In the dell
By...Read more of this...

The Copernican System

by Thomas Chatterton
 The Sun revolving on his axis turns, 
And with creative fire intensely burns; 
Impell'd by forcive air, our Earth supreme, 
Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam. 
First Mercury completes his transient year, 
Glowing, refulgent, with reflected glare; 
Bright Venus occupies a wider way, 
The early harbinger of night and day; 
More distant still our globe terraqueous turns,...Read more of this...

Sestina VII

by Francesco Petrarch
SESTINA VII. Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l' onde. HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED.  Nor Ocean holds such swarms amid his waves,Not overhead, where circles the pale moon,Were stars so numerous ever seen by night,Nor dwell so many birds among the woods,Read more of this...

The Sphinx

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--

"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalion plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Unspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and...Read more of this...

Madness

by Joyce Kilmer
 (For Sara Teasdale)

The lonely farm, the crowded street,
The palace and the slum,
Give welcome to my silent feet
As, bearing gifts, I come.
Last night a beggar crouched alone,
A ragged helpless thing;
I set him on a moonbeam throne --
Today he is a king.
Last night a king in orb and crown
Held court with splendid cheer;
Today he tears his purple gown
And moans and shrieks...Read more of this...

Sonnet to Amicus

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHOE'ER thou art, whose soul-enchanting song
Steals on the sullen ear of pensive woe;
To whom the sounds of melody belong,
Sounds, that can more than human bliss bestow; 

Like the wak'd God of day, whose rays pervade
The spangled veil of night, and fling their fires
O'er the cold bosom of the em'rald glade,
While bath'd in tears, the virgin orb retires. 

Thy glowing...Read more of this...

The Hawk and the Babe

by Aleister Crowley
 [Dedicated to Raymond Radclyffe]

I am that hawk of gold
Proud in adamantine poise
On the pillars of torqoise,
See,beyond the starry fold,
Where a darkling orb is rolled.

There, beneath a grove of yew,
Plays a babe. Should I despise
Such a foam of gold, and eyes
Burning beryline, so blue
That the sun seems peeping through?

Did I swwop, were Heaven amazed?
With my beak I strike but once;
Out...Read more of this...

Queen Matilda

by Marriott Edgar
 Henry the first, surnamed " Beauclare," 
Lost his only son William at sea,
So when Henry died it were hard to decide 
Who his heir and successor should be.

There were two runners-up for the title- 
His daughter Matilda was one,
And the other, a boy, known as Stephen of Blois, 
His young sister Adela's son.

Matilda by right should have had it,
Being...Read more of this...

281. Sonnet to R. Graham Esq. on Receiving a Favour

by Robert Burns
 I CALL no Goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns:
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,
And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gifts still dearer, as the giver you.
Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!
And all ye many sparkling stars of night!
If aught that giver...Read more of this...

What launched that golden orb his course to run,

by Omar Khayyam
What launched that golden orb his course to run,
What wrecks his firm foundations, when 'tis done,
No man of science ever weighed with scales,
Nor made assay with touchstone, no, not one!...Read more of this...

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