Famous Perch Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Forest Hymn

...l worship;---Nature, here, 
In the tranquility that thou dost love, 
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, 
From perch to perch, the solitary bird 
Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs, 
Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots 
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left 
Thyself without a witness, in these shades, 
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace 
Are here to speak of thee. Thi...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen


A Song To David

...triumphs o'er the flesh. 

 LXXI 
For ADORATION, in the dome 
Of Christ, the sparrows find a home; 
 And on His olives perch: 
The swallow also dwells with thee, 
O man of God's humility, 
 Within his Saviour CHURCH. 

 LXXII 
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes, 
And drops upon the leafy limes; 
 Sweet, Hermon's fragrant air: 
Sweet is the lily's silver bell, 
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell 
 That watch for early pray'r. 

 LXXIII 
Sweet the young nurse with love intens...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

Constantly Risking Absurdity

...perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence...Read more of this...
by Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

Endymion: Book III

...vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones--
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone--
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.--
Are then re...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Endymion: Book IV

...gst them? Feelest not a kindred pain,
To see such lovely eyes in swimming search
After some warm delight, that seems to perch
Dovelike in the dim cell lying beyond
Their upper lids?--Hist! "O for Hermes' wand
To touch this flower into human shape!
That woodland Hyacinthus could escape
From his green prison, and here kneeling down
Call me his queen, his second life's fair crown!
Ah me, how I could love!--My soul doth melt
For the unhappy youth--Love! I have felt
So faint a kin...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Eviradnus

...ttlements now lie; 
 Around the snake-like bramble twists its rings; 
 Freebooter sparrows come on daring wings 
 To perch upon the swivel-gun, nor heed 
 Its murmuring growl when pecking in their greed 
 The mulberries ripe. With insolence the thorn 
 Thrives on the desolation so forlorn. 
 But winter brings revenges; then the Keep 
 Wakes all vindictive from its seeming sleep, 
 Hurls down the heavy rain, night after night, 
 Thanking the season's all-resistless m...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

Hyperion

...earl beads dropping sudden from their string:
And then another, then another strain,
Each like a dove leaving its olive perch,
With music wing'd instead of silent plumes,
To hover round my head, and make me sick
Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame,
And I was stopping up my frantic ears,
When, past all hindrance of my trembling hands,
A voice came sweeter, sweeter than all tune,
And still it cried, 'Apollo! young Apollo!
The morning-bright Apollo! young Apollo!'
I fled, i...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Inferno (Italian)

...eta fui, e cantai di quel giusto

figliuol d'Anchise che venne di Troia,

poi che 'l superbo Ili?n fu combusto.

 Ma tu perch? ritorni a tanta noia?

perch? non sali il dilettoso monte

ch'? principio e cagion di tutta gioia?».

 «Or se' tu quel Virgilio e quella fonte

che spandi di parlar s? largo fiume?»,

rispuos'io lui con vergognosa fronte.

 «O de li altri poeti onore e lume

vagliami 'l lungo studio e 'l grande amore

che m'ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume.

 Tu se' lo m...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Last Instructions to a Painter

.... 
But fresh as from the Mint, the courtiers fine 
Salute them, smiling at their vain design, 
And Turner gay up to his perch does march 
With face new bleached, smoothened and stiff with starch; 
Tells them he at Whitehall had took a turn 
And for three days thence moves them to adjourn. 
`Not so!' quoth Tomkins, and straight drew his tongue, 
Trusty as steel that always ready hung, 
And so, proceeding in his motion warm, 
The army soon raised, he doth as soon disarm. 
True ...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Monadnoc

...fe's ornament,
And mix itself with each event;
Their calendar and dial,
Barometer, and chemic phial,
Garden of berries, perch of birds,
Pasture of pool-haunting herds,
Graced by each change of sum untold,
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.

The Titan minds his sky-affairs,
Rich rents and wide alliance shares;
Mysteries of color daily laid
By the great sun in light and shade,
And, sweet varieties of chance,
And the mystic seasons' dance,
And thief-like step of liberal hou...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Paradiso (Italian)

...no altrove.
 Nel ciel che pi? de la sua luce prende
fu' io, e vidi cose che ridire
n? sa n? pu? chi di l? s? discende;
 perch? appressando s? al suo disire,
nostro intelletto si profonda tanto,
che dietro la memoria non pu? ire.
 Veramente quant'io del regno santo
ne la mia mente potei far tesoro,
sar? ora materia del mio canto.
 O buono Appollo, a l'ultimo lavoro
fammi del tuo valor s? fatto vaso,
come dimandi a dar l'amato alloro.
 Infino a qui l'un giogo di Parnaso
assai m...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

Paul Revere's Ride

...h, 
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
To the belfry-chamber overhead, 
And startled the pigeons from their perch 
On the sombre rafters, that round him made 
Masses and moving shapes of shade,-- 
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, 
To the highest window in the wall, 
Where he paused to listen and look down 
A moment on the roofs of the town, 
And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, 
In their night-encampment...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Snowbound a Winter Idyl

...ng horn on horn, 
Impatient down the stanchion rows 
The cattle shake their walnut bows; 
While, peering from his early perch 
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 
The cock his crested helmet bent 
And down his querulous challenge sent. 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 
The gray day darkened into night, 
A night made hoary with the swarm 
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 
As zigzag, wavering to and fro, 
Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow: 
And ere the early bedtime cam...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

The Broken Balance

...the bald ape's by-shot
Was moderately admirable?

VI. Palinode

All summer neither rain nor wave washes the cormorants'
Perch, and their droppings have painted it shining white.
If the excrement of fish-eaters makes the brown rock a snow-mountain
At noon, a rose in the morning, a beacon at moonrise
On the black water: it is barely possible that even men's present
Lives are something; their arts and sciences (by moonlight)
Not wholly ridiculous, nor their cities merely an offe...Read more of this...
by Jeffers, Robinson

The Dungeon

...ne quick and sudden Gale had swept  An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch'd  Many a Nightingale perch giddily  On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,  And to that motion tune his wanton song,  Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.   Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,  And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!  We have been loitering long and pleasantly, ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Flight Of The Duchess

...her an airing,
You found she needed a little preparing?
---I say, should you be such a curmudgeon,
If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon?
Yet when the Duke to his lady signified,
Just a day before, as he judged most dignified,
In what a pleasure she was to participate,---
And, instead of leaping wide in flashes,
Her eyes just lifted their long lashes,
As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate,
And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought,
But spoke o...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Growth of Love

...es:
Or, strutting on hot meridian banks, surprise
The silence: over plains in the moonlight bare
I chase my shadow, and perch where no bird dare
In treetops torn by fiercest winds of the skies. 
Poor simple birds, foolish birds! then I cry,
Ye pretty pictures of delight, unstir'd
By the only joy of knowing that ye fly;
Ye are not what ye are, but rather, sum'd in a word,
The alphabet of a god's idea, and I
Who master it, I am the only bird. 

23
O weary pilgrims, chanting of ...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Jacquerie A Fragment

...s, with various voice, "Go to,
Old Rogue," or "Shall I brain him, my good Lord?"
Or, "So, let me but chuck him from his perch,"
Or, "Slice his tongue to piece his leg withal,"
Or, "Send his eyes to look for his missing arms."
But my Lord Raoul was in the mood, to-day,
Which craves suggestions simply with a view
To flout them in the face, and so waved hand
Backward, and stayed the on-pressing sycophants
Eager to buy rich praise with bravery cheap.
"I would know why," -- he sai...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Lady of the Lake

...t tell me, then, the maid who knows,
     Why deepened on her cheek the rose?—
     Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!
     Perchance the maiden smiled to see
     Yon parting lingerer wave adieu,
     And stop and turn to wave anew;
     And, lovely ladies, ere your ire
     Condemn the heroine of my lyre,
     Show me the fair would scorn to spy
     And prize such conquest of her eve!
     VI.

     While yet he loitered on the spot,
     It seemed as Ellen marked hi...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Prisoner of Chillon

...st rank
With joy: - but not in chains to pine:
His spirit wither'd with their clank,
I saw it silently decline -
And so perchance in sooth did mine:
But yet I forced it on to cheer
Those relics of a home so dear.
He was a hunter of the hills,
Had follow'd there the deer and wolf;
To him this dungeon was a gulf,
And fetter'd feet the worst of ills. 

VI
Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls:
A thousand feet in depth below
Its massy waters meet and flow:
Thus much the fathom-line ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

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