Famous Outdoors Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Certain Kind of Holy Men

...them are.
I love those who've learned
to sit comfortably
for long periods with their hams
pressed against their calves,
outdoors,
with a wall for a back-rest,
contentedly saying nothing.
These move about only when
necessary,
on foot, and almost always
in pairs.
I think of them as oblates.
Christ's blood is in their veins
or they thirst for it.
They have looked into the eyes
of God,
unprotected by smoked glass....Read more of this...
by Nowlan, Alden


A Fountain a Bottle a Donkeys Ears and Some Books

...ou said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman,
The early Mormons made a settlement
And built a stone baptismal font outdoors—
But Smith, or someone, called them off the mountain
To go West to a worse fight with the desert.
You said you'd seen the stone baptismal font.
Well, take me there."

 Someday I will."

 "Today."

"Huh, that old bathtub, what is that to see?
Let's talk about it."

 "Let's go see the place."

'To shut you up I'll tell you what I'll do:
I'll find that...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

A Mysterious Naked Man

...
on Cranston Avenue. The police are performing
the usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
excitedly
as they do during disasters when their involvement is
peripheral.
'What did he look like? ' the lieutenant is asking.
'I don't know, ' says the witness. 'He was naked.'
There is talk of dogs-this is no ordinary case
of indecent exposure, the man has been seen
a dozen times since the milkman spotted him and now
...Read more of this...
by Nowlan, Alden

A Servant to Servants

...e house, 
Drawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and whiter. 
It took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit 
To step outdoors and take the water dazzle 
A sunny morning, or take the rising wind 
About my face and body and through my wrapper, 
When a storm threatened from the Dragon's Den, 
And a cold chill shivered across the lake. 
I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water, 
Our Willoughby! How did you hear of it? 
I expect, though, everyone's heard of it. 
In a book about...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Aprils Charms

...ts make their home, 
And let a few small strawberry vlossoms come:

When I go forth on such a pleasant day, 
One breath outdoors takes all my cares away; 
It goes like heavy smoke, when flames take hold 
Of wood that's green and fill a grate with gold....Read more of this...
by Davies, William Henry


Corn Hut Talk

...the bumblebees once,
high winds and November rain now.

Buy shoes
 for rough weather in November.
Buy shirts
 to sleep outdoors when May comes.

 Buy me
something useless to remember you by.
 Send me
a sumach leaf from an Illinois hill.

 In the faces marching in the firelog flickers,
In the fire music of wood singing to winter,
Make my face march through the purple and ashes.
Make me one of the fire singers to winter....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Drum-Taps

...
The new recruits, even boys—the old men show them how to wear their
 accoutrements—they
 buckle the straps carefully; 
Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels; 
The white tents cluster in camps—the arm’d sentries around—the sunrise
 cannon,
 and
 again at sunset;
Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;

(How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their
 shoulders! 
How I...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Essential Beauty

...ctric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just ...Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

From Snow-Bound 11:1-40 116-154

...d;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea."
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the somber green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such ...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

New Hampshire

...much for sale.
The farm I made my home on in the mountains 
1 had to take by force rather than buy.

I caught the owner outdoors by himself
Raking.up after winter, and I said,
“I’m going to put you off this farm: I want it."
“Where are you going to put me? In the road?”
“I’m going to put you on the farm next to it.”
“Why won't the farm next to it do for you?"
"I like this better." It was really better.

Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed,
With no suspicion in stern...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Off the Turnpike

...e 'stead o' through the shed,
'Cause there was such a sight o' moonlight
Somehow or another I thought 'twould be pretty outdoors.
I got settled for pretty things that night, I guess.
I ain't stuck on 'em no more.
Well, them laylock bushes side o' th' house
Was real lovely.
Glitt'rin' and shakin' in the moonlight,
An' the smell o' them rose right up
An' most took my breath away.
The colour o' the spikes was all faded out,
They never keep their colour when the moon's on 'em,
Bu...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Self-Portrait At 28

...that we are both comforted by the honesty.
You see there is a window by my desk
I stare out when I am stuck
though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write
and I don't know why I keep staring at it.

My childhood hasn't made good material either
mostly being a mulch of white minutes
with a few stand out moments,
popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer
a certain amount of pride at school
everytime they called it "our sun"
and playing football when the only play
...Read more of this...
by Berman, David

Snow

...he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.


When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.


But why were they on his property, he asked....Read more of this...
by Berman, David

Snowbound a Winter Idyl

...While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
The meaning of the miracle, 
Whispered the old rhyme: "Under the tree, 
When fire outdoors burns merrily, 
There the witches are making tea." 
The moon above the eastern wood 
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood 
Transfigured in the silver flood, 
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
Took shadow, or the sombre green 
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
Against the whiteness at their back. ...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

The Fear

...s.
Let him get off and he'll be everywhere
Around us, looking out of trees and bushes
Till I sha'n't dare to set a foot outdoors.
And I can't stand it. Joel, let me go!"
"But it's nonsense to think he'd care enough."
"You mean you couldn't understand his caring.
Oh, but you see he hadn't had enough--
Joel, I won't--I won't--I promise you.
We mustn't say hard things. You mustn't either."
"I'll be the one, if anybody goes!
But you give him the advantage with this light.
What co...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Grindstone

...of the wheelbarrow.)
For months it hasn't known the taste of steel
Washed down with rusty water in a tin..
But standing outdoors hungry, in the cold,
Except in towns at night is not a sin.
And> anyway, it's standing in the yard
Under a ruinous live apple tree
Has nothing any more to do with me,
Except that I remember how of old
One summer day, all day I drove it hard,
And someone mounted on it rode it hard
And he and I between us ground a blade.
I gave it the preliminary spin...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Housekeeper

...e outdoor work, though as for that, 
He'd say she does it more because she likes it. 
You see our pretty things are all outdoors. 
Our hens and cows and pigs are always better 
Than folks like us have any business with. 
Farmers around twice as well off as we 
Haven't as good. They don't go with the farm. 
One thing you can't help liking about John, 
He's fond of nice things--too fond, some would say. 
But Estelle don't complain: she's like him there. 
She wants our hens to b...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Self-Seeker

...s is between you two apparently. 
Where I come in is what I want to know. 
You stand up to it like a pair of cocks. 
Go outdoors if you want to fight. Spare me. 
When you come back, I'll have the papers signed. 
Will pencil do? Then, please, your fountain pen. 
One of you hold my head up from the pillow." 
Willis flung off the bed. "I wash my hands-- 
I'm no match--no, and don't pretend to be----" 
The lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen. 
"You're doing the wise thing: you...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Star-Splitter

...lways comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion's having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Thatch

...ere we dwelt,
Its wind-torn thatch goes now unmended;
Its life of hundred of years has ended
By letting the rain I knew outdoors
In on to the upper chamber floors....Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

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