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Famous Perennial Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...ears
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In the pure light that filled our firmament
Of supreme silence and unbarred extent,
Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord,
One resurrection, one recurrent cho...Read more of this...



by Wright, James
...ed his car and found
A girl on the darkening ground,
And killed her in the snow.

Beside his cell, I am told,
Hardy perennial bums
Complain till twilight comes
For hunger and for cold.
They hardly know of a day
That saw their hunger pass.
Bred to the dark, their flesh
Peacefully withers away.

The man who sits alone,
He is the one for wonder,
Who sways his fingers under
The cleanly shaven chin,
Who sees, in the shaving mirror
Pinned to the barren wall,
The upr...Read more of this...

by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...shall in radiance beam 
On Canaan's happy land. Her fav'rite seers 
Have intercourse divine with this pure source; 
Perennial thence rich streams of light shall flow, 
To each adjoining vale and desert plain 
Lost in the umbrage of dark heathen shades. 
The gospel light shall gloriously survive 
The wasting blaze of ev'ry baser fire. 
The fire of Vesta, an eternal fire, 
So falsely call'd and kept alive at Rome; 
Sepulchral lamp in burial place of kings, 
Burn'd u...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e last chemistry. 

Give me exhaustless—make me a fountain, 
That I exhale love from me wherever I go, like a moist perennial dew,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers....Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...d. 

One sees only a surface 
pocked with rushes, the starved clumps 
pressed between water and space -- 
rootless, perennial stumps 

fixed in position, entombed 
in nothing; it is too late 
to bring forth branches, to bloom 
or die, only the long wait 

lies ahead, a parody 
of perfection. Who denies 
this is creation, this sea 
constant before the stunned eye's 

insatiable gaze, shall find 
nothing he can comprehend. 
Here the mind beholds the mind 
as it shal...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...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.

211

Come slowly—Eden!
Lips unused to Thee—
Bashful—sip thy Jessamines—
As the fainting Bee—

Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums—
Counts his nectars—
Enters—and is lost in Balms.

213

Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?

Did the "Pa...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...stooped down!

No Wilderness -- can be
Where this attendeth me --
No Desert Noon --
No fear of frost to come
Haunt the perennial bloom --
But Certain June!

Get Gabriel -- to tell -- the royal syllable --
Get Saints -- with new -- unsteady tongue --
To say what trance below
Most like their glory show --
Fittest the Crown!...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ones
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...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ernoons --

If God could make a visit --
Or ever took a Nap --
So not to see us -- but they say
Himself -- a Telescope

Perennial beholds us --
Myself would run away
From Him -- and Holy Ghost -- and All --
But there's the "Judgement Day"!...Read more of this...

by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...Its strength, its all, to meet thy strong desire.

As in a forest when dead leaves are falling, 
From all save some perennial green tree, 
So one by one I find all pleasures palling 
That are not linked with or enjoyed by thee. 
And all the homage that the world may proffer, 
I take as perfumed oils or incense sweet, 
And think of it as one thing more to offer 
And sacrifice to Love, at thy dear feet.

I love myself because thou art my lover, 
My name seems dear s...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...nt as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
And yet the root perennial may be....Read more of this...

by Hill, Geoffrey
...King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the
M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at
Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh
Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates:
saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the
friend of Charlemagne.

...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...h needs to know
what the other is feeling, so the thrill
of humiliation is visited on one and
the other is disbelieved, perennial virgin,
with teeth marks on her buttocks 
hiding in the closet and the power 
between them is distributed unequally 
the other on her knees in ecstasy...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, 
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, 
Perennial roots, tall leaves—O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, 
Every year shall you bloom again—out from where you retired, you shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or inhale your faint
 odor—but
 I
 believe a few will; 
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in your own ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...e—chant, not of the past only, but the future. 

3
You untold life of me, 
And all you venerable and innocent joys,
Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, ’mid rain, and many a summer sun, 
And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds; 
O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul’s strong joys, unreck’d by man; 
(For know I bear the soul befitting me—I too have consciousness, identity, 
And all the rocks and mountains have—and all the earth;)
Joys of the life befitti...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...stens speech
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.

Conclusion is the course of All
At most to be perennial
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality....Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...die,
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers,
Adn thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
- As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise and emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow
Among the Aegaean isles;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster com...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...They wave:- from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:- from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems....Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ime! 
And if he liked us there about his knees, 
Truly it was no crime.

All summer long we loved him for the same 
Perennial inspiration of his lies; 
And when the russet wealth of autumn came, 
There flew but fairer visions to our eyes-- 
Multiple, tropical, winged with a feathery flame, 
Like birds of paradise.

So to the sheltered end of many a year 
He charmed the seasons out with pageantry 
Wearing upon his forehead, with no fear, 
The laurel of approved iniquit...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; 
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love. 

2
O powerful, western, fallen star! 
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! 
O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star! 
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul! 

3
In the d...Read more of this...

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