Famous Pearls Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the...Read more of this...

Chain Of Pearls

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Mother, I shall weave a chain of pearls for thy neck 
with my tears of sorrow. 

The stars have wrought their anklets of light to deck thy feet, 
but mine will hang upon thy breast. 

Wealth and fame come from thee 
and it is for thee to give or to withhold them. 
But this my sorrow is absolutely mine...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLIX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLIX. Stiamo, Amor, a veder la gloria nostra. TO LOVE, ON LAURA WALKING ABROAD.  Here stand we, Love, our glory to behold—How, passing Nature, lovely, high, and rare!Behold! what showers of sweetness falling there!What floods of light by heaven to earth unroll'd!How shine her robes, in purple, pearls, and gold,Read more of this...

Athanasia

by Oscar Wilde
 To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.

But when they had unloosed the linen band
Which swathed the Egyptian's body,...Read more of this...

Boo to Buddha

by Aleister Crowley
 So it is eighteen years,
Helena, since we met!
A season so endears,
Nor you nor I forget
The fresh young faces that once clove
In that most fiery dawn of love.

We wandered to and fro,
Who knew not how to woo,
Those eighteen years ago,
Sweetheart, when I and you
Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight
That scarce survived a summer's night.

What scourge smote from the stars
What madness...Read more of this...

Chords

by Carl Sandburg
 IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes … horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea.

In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders … and a speaking, brooding black velvet, relapsing to the voiceless … battering Russian marches on a piano …...Read more of this...

Pearls

by Bernadette Geyer
 And so I look back
still thinking of her
with painful heart,
this clench of inner flesh.

 —Kakinomoto Hitomaro
 from Manyoshu



*

Praise the irritant, that genesis,
implanted within the soft
and malleable animal that bore you.

*

Your brethren strung around my neck,
dangling from my earlobes.
The imperfections the jeweler slights, I praise.

*

Artifact of a biological process,
why do we expect
symmetry from a grain of sand?

*

Praise the oblong beauty
of...Read more of this...

Her breast is fit for pearls

by Emily Dickinson
 Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a "Diver" --
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home --
I -- a Sparrow -- build there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest....Read more of this...

Tis little I -- could care for Pearls

by Emily Dickinson
 'Tis little I -- could care for Pearls --
Who own the ample sea --
Or Brooches -- when the Emperor --
With Rubies -- pelteth me --

Or Gold -- who am the Prince of Mines --
Or Diamonds -- when have I
A Diadem to fit a Dom --
Continual upon me --...Read more of this...

The Favorite Sultana

by Victor Hugo
 ("N'ai-je pas pour toi, belle juive.") 
 
 {XII., Oct. 27, 1828.} 


 To please you, Jewess, jewel! 
 I have thinned my harem out! 
 Must every flirting of your fan 
 Presage a dying shout? 
 
 Grace for the damsels tender 
 Who have fear to hear your laugh, 
 For seldom gladness gilds your lips...Read more of this...

Epistle To My Brother George

by John Keats
 Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should...Read more of this...

Roses And Pearls

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Your spoken words are roses fine and sweet,
The songs you sing are perfect pearls of sound.
How lavish nature is about your feet,
To scatter flowers and jewels both around.
Blushing the stream of petal beauty flows,
Softly the white strings trickle down and shine.
Oh! speak to me, my love, I crave a rose.
Sing me a song, for I would pearls were mine.
...Read more of this...

Little Moccasins

by Robert William Service
 Come out, O Little Moccasins, and frolic on the snow!
Come out, O tiny beaded feet, and twinkle in the light!
I'll play the old Red River reel, you used to love it so:
Awake, O Little Moccasins, and dance for me to-night!

Your hair was all a gleamy gold, your eyes a corn-flower blue;
Your cheeks were pink as tinted shells, you stepped...Read more of this...

Sonnet XIII: Bring Brick to Deck My Brow

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Bring, bring to deck my brow, ye Sylvan girls,
A roseate wreath; nor for my waving hair
The costly band of studded gems prepare,
Of sparkling crysolite or orient pearls:
Love, o'er my head his canopy unfurls,
His purple pinions fan the whisp'ring air;
Mocking the golden sandal, rich and rare, 
Beneath my feet the fragrant woodbine curls.
Bring the thin robe, to fold about my...Read more of this...

Ode To The Johns Hopkins University

by Sidney Lanier
 How tall among her sisters, and how fair, --
How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair
As dawn, 'mid wrinkled Matres of old lands
Our youngest Alma Mater modest stands!
In four brief cycles round the punctual sun
Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won
This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.
Howbeit she was born
Unnoised as any stealing summer morn.
From far the sages saw,...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXLVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXLVIII. Amor fra l' orbe una leggiadra rete. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BIRD CAUGHT IN A NET.  Love 'mid the grass beneath a laurel green—The plant divine which long my flame has fed,Whose shade for me less bright than sad is seen—A cunning net of gold and pearls had spread:Read more of this...

To Some Birds Flown Away

by Victor Hugo
 ("Enfants! Oh! revenez!") 
 
 {XXII, April, 1837} 


 Children, come back—come back, I say— 
 You whom my folly chased away 
 A moment since, from this my room, 
 With bristling wrath and words of doom! 
 What had you done, you bandits small, 
 With lips as red as roses all? 
 What crime?—what wild and...Read more of this...

To Rinaldo

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SOFT is the balmy breath of May, 
When from the op'ning lids of day 
Meek twilight steals; and from its wings 
Translucent pearls of ether flings. 
MILD is the chaste Moon's languid eye, 
When gliding down the dappled sky 
She feebly lifts her spangled bow, 
Around her glitt'ring darts to throw.­ 
SWEET are the aromatic bowers, 
When Night sends...Read more of this...

Clementes Images

by Robert Creeley
 1)

Sleeping birds, lead me,
soft birds, be me

inside this black room,
back of the white moon.

In the dark night
sight frightens me.


2)

Who is it nuzzles there
with furred, round headed stare?

Who, perched on the skin,
body's float, is holding on?

What other one stares still,
plays still, on and on?


3)

Stand upright, prehensile,
squat, determined,

small guardians of the painful
outside coming in --

in stuck in vials with needles,
bleeding life...Read more of this...

Though Khayyam strings no pearls of righteous deeds,

by Omar Khayyam
Though Khayyam strings no pearls of righteous deeds,
Nor sweeps from off his soul sin's noisome weeds,
Yet will he not despair of heavenly grace,
Seeing that ONE as two he ne'er misreads....Read more of this...

Finrods Song

by J R R Tolkien
 He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever...Read more of this...

Each and All

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The wexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed...Read more of this...

Dream Song 50: In a motion of night they massed nearer my post

by John Berryman
 In a motion of night they massed nearer my post.
I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out
I studied my weapons system.
Grenades, the portable rack, the yellow spout
of the anthrax-ray: in order. Yes, and most
of my pencils were sharp.

This edge of the galaxy has often seen
a defence so stiff, but it could only go
one way.
-”Mr Bones, your troubles...Read more of this...

The Choice

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 He'd have given me rolling lands,
Houses of marble, and billowing farms,
Pearls, to trickle between my hands,
Smoldering rubies, to circle my arms.
You- you'd only a lilting song,
Only a melody, happy and high,
You were sudden and swift and strong-
Never a thought for another had I.

He'd have given me laces rare,
Dresses that glimmered with frosty sheen,
Shining ribbons to wrap my hair,
Horses to...Read more of this...

Mungojerrie And Rumpelteazer

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple 
 of cats.
As knockabout clown, quick-change comedians, tight-rope 
 walkers and acrobats
They had extensive reputation. They made their home in 
 Victoria Grove--
That was merely their centre of operation, for they were 
 incurably given to rove.
They were very well know in Cornwall Gardens, in Launceston 
 Place and in Kensington...Read more of this...

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