Famous Piercing Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Tutto è Sciolto

by James Joyce
 A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star
Piercing the west,
As thou, fond heart, love's time, so faint, so far,
Rememberest. 

The clear young eyes' soft look, the candid brow,
The fragrant hair,
Falling as through the silence falleth now
Dusk of the air. 

Why then, remembering those shy
Sweet lures, repine
When the dear love she yielded with a sigh
Was all but thine?...Read more of this...

Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter

by Robert Frost
 The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on...Read more of this...

Yankee Doodle

by Vachel Lindsay
 This poem is intended as a description of a sort of Blashfield mural painting on the sky. To be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, yet in a slower, more orotund fashion. It is presumably an exercise for an entertainment on the evening of Washington's Birthday.


Dawn this morning burned all red
Watching them in wonder.
There I saw our spangled...Read more of this...

A Ballad (thesis For A Doctors Degree)

by Andrei Voznesensky
 My doc announced yesterday : 
 "You may have talent, though it's hidden, 
 your beak, however, is frost-bitten, 
 so stick at home on a cold day". 

 The nose, eh? 

 As irretrievable as time, 
 conforming to the laws of medicine, 
 your nose, like that of any person, 
 keep growing 
 steadily, 
 with...Read more of this...

I know that He exists

by Emily Dickinson
 I know that He exists.
Somewhere -- in Silence --
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.

'Tis an instant's play.
'Tis a fond Ambush --
Just to make Bliss
Earn her own surprise!

But -- should the play
Prove piercing earnest --
Should the glee -- glaze --
In Death's -- stiff -- stare --

Would not the fun
Look too expensive!
Would not the jest --
Have crawled too...Read more of this...

from On the Equality of the Sexes Part I

by Judith Sargent Murray
That minds are not alike, full well I know,
This truth each day's experience will show.
To heights surprising some great spirits soar,
With inborn strength mysterious depths explore;
Their eager gaze surveys the path of light,
Confessed it stood to Newton's piercing sight,
     Deep science, like a bashful maid retires,
And but the ardent breast her worth inspires;
By perseverance the coy...Read more of this...

Ode to the Nightingale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SWEET BIRD OF SORROW! ­why complain 
In such soft melody of Song, 
That ECHO, am'rous of thy Strain, 
The ling'ring cadence doth prolong? 
Ah! tell me, tell me, why, 
Thy dulcet Notes ascend the sky. 
Or on the filmy vapours glide 
Along the misty moutain's side? 
And wherefore dost Thou love to dwell, 
In the dark wood and moss-grown...Read more of this...

The Message

by George William Russell
 Wind of the gentle summer night,
Dwell in the lilac tree,
Sway the blossoms clustered light,
Then blow over to me.

Wind, you are sometimes strong and great,
You frighten the ships at sea,
Now come floating your delicate freight
Out of the lilac tree,

Wind you must waver a gossamer sail
To ferry a scent so light,
Will you carry my love a message as frail
Through the hawk-haunted...Read more of this...

On the Pulse of Morning

by Maya Angelou
(also referred to as The Rock Cries Out To Us Today)

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you...Read more of this...

Hymn on Solitude

by James Thomson
 Hail, mildly pleasing solitude,
Companion of the wise and good;
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools, and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whisper'd talk,
Which innocence, and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts. 

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A...Read more of this...

Patroling Barnegat

by Walt Whitman
 WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running, 
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering, 
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing, 
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, 
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting, 
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,...Read more of this...

Nothing Stays Put

by Amy Clampitt
 In memory of Father Flye, 1884-1985


The strange and wonderful are too much with us.
The protea of the antipodes—a great,
globed, blazing honeybee of a bloom—
for sale in the supermarket! We are in
our decadence, we are not entitled.
What have we done to deserve
all the produce of the tropics—
this fiery trove, the largesse of it
heaped up like cannonballs, these pineapples, bossed
and crested,...Read more of this...

Light

by John Milton
 HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, 
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam 
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, 
Bright effluence of bright essence increate. 
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, 
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun, 
Before the Heavens...Read more of this...

The Imperfect Enjoyment

by John Wilmot
 Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.
With arms,legs,lips close clinging to embrace,
She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
Her nimble tongue, Love's lesser lightening, played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should...Read more of this...

The Old And The Young Bridegroom

by Victor Hugo
 ("L'homme auquel on vous destina.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act I.} 


 Listen. The man for whom your youth is destined, 
 Your uncle, Ruy de Silva, is the Duke 
 Of Pastrana, Count of Castile and Aragon. 
 For lack of youth, he brings you, dearest girl, 
 Treasures of gold, jewels, and precious gems, 
 With which your...Read more of this...

Keepe On Your Maske And Hide Your Eye

by William Strode
 Keepe on your maske, and hide your eye,
For with beholding you I dye:
Your fatall beauty, Gorgon-like,
Dead with astonishment will strike;
Your piercing eyes if them I see
Are worse than basilisks to mee.


Shutt from mine eyes those hills of snowe,
Their melting valleys doe not showe;
Their azure paths lead to dispaire,
O vex me not, forbeare, forbeare;
For while I thus in torments dwell
The...Read more of this...

Lincoln

by John Gould Fletcher
 I 

Like a gaunt, scraggly pine 
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills; 
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence, 
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow. 

Ungainly, labouring, huge, 
The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches; 
Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunderclouds ring the horizon, 
A nation of men...Read more of this...

The Coronet

by Andrew Marvell
 When for the Thorns with which I long, too long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviours head have crown'd,
I seek with Garlands to redress that Wrong:
Through every Garden, every Mead,
I gather flow'rs (my fruits are only flow'rs)
Dismantling all the fragrant Towers
That once adorn'd my Shepherdesses head.
And now when I have summ'd up all my store,
Thinking (so I my self deceive)
So...Read more of this...

The Winters Spring

by John Clare
 The winter comes; I walk alone,
 I want no bird to sing;
To those who keep their hearts their own
 The winter is the spring.
No flowers to please—no bees to hum—
 The coming spring's already come.

I never want the Christmas rose
 To come before its time;
The seasons, each as God bestows,
 Are simple and sublime.
I love to see the snowstorm...Read more of this...

Renunciation -- is a piercing Virtue --

by Emily Dickinson
 Renunciation -- is a piercing Virtue --
The letting go
A Presence -- for an Expectation --
Not now --
The putting out of Eyes --
Just Sunrise --
Lest Day --
Day's Great Progenitor --
Outvie
Renunciation -- is the Choosing
Against itself --
Itself to justify
Unto itself --
When larger function --
Make that appear --
Smaller -- that Covered Vision -- Here --...Read more of this...

Symphonic Studies (After Schumann)

by Emma Lazarus
 Prelude 

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July 
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea: 
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony 
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky. 
Shall we not call im Prospero who held 
In his enchanted hands the fateful key 
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery, 
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled, 
With him...Read more of this...

Who dares to take this life from me Knows no better

by T Wignesan
for Eric Mottram

"Nur wenn das Herz erschlossen,

Dann ist die Erde schön."

Goethe.

I

An important thing in living
Is to know when to go;
He who does not know this
Has not far to go,
Though death may come and go
When you do not know.


Come, give me your hand,
Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder
We'll go, sour kana in cheeks
And in the mornings cherry sticks
To gum: the infectious...Read more of this...

A Musical Instrument

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
WHAT was he doing the great god Pan  
Down in the reeds by the river? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban  
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat  
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 
With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed the great god Pan  
From the deep cool bed of...Read more of this...

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

by Walt Whitman
 1
 COME, my tan-faced children, 
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; 
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers! 

2
 For we cannot tarry here, 
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! 

3
 O...Read more of this...

Of the Visage of Things

by Walt Whitman
 OF the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath; 
Of ugliness—To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty—And now the
 ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me; 
Of detected persons—To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse than
 undetected
 persons—and are not in any respect worse...Read more of this...

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