Famous Quiet Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Quiet poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous quiet poems. These examples illustrate what a famous quiet poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rupert Brooke
Today I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
The strong shore is my beloved
And I am his sweetheart.
We are at last united by love, and
Then the moon draws me from him.
I go to him in haste and depart
Reluctantly, with many
Little farewells.
I steal swiftly from behind the
Blue horizon to cast the silver of
My foam upon the gold of his...Read more of this...
by
Wallace Stevens
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with metry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--
Of toil unsever'd from tranquility!
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
Yes, while...Read more of this...
by
Langston Hughes
I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
She went as quiet as the Dew
From an Accustomed flower.
Not like the Dew, did she return
At the Accustomed hour!
She dropt as softly as a star
From out my summer's Eve --
Less skillful than Le Verriere
It's sorer to believe!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
It was a quiet seeming Day --
There was no harm in earth or sky --
Till with the closing sun
There strayed an accidental Red
A Strolling Hue, one would have said
To westward of the Town --
But when the Earth began to jar
And Houses vanished with a roar
And Human Nature hid
We comprehended by the Awe
As those that Dissolution saw
The Poppy in the...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Allan Poe
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
It was a quiet way --
He asked if I was his --
I made no answer of the Tongue
But answer of the Eyes --
And then He bore me on
Before this mortal noise
With swiftness, as of Chariots
And distance, as of Wheels.
This World did drop away
As Acres from the feet
Of one that leaneth from Balloon
Upon an Ether street.
The Gulf behind was not,
The...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, de grubbin'-hoe 's a-rustin' in de co'nah,
An' de plow 's a-tumblin' down in de fiel',
While de whippo'will 's a-wailin' lak a mou'nah
When his stubbo'n hea't is tryin' ha'd to yiel'.
In de furrers whah de co'n was allus wavin',
Now de weeds is growin' green an' rank an' tall;
An' de swallers roun' de whole place is a-bravin'
Lak dey thought deir folks...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Although autumn this evening along the paths and the woods' edges lets the leaves fall slowly like gilded hands;
Although autumn this evening with its arms of wind harvests the petals and their pallor of the earnest rose-trees;
We shall let nothing of our two souls fall suddenly with these flowers.
But before the flames of the golden hearth of memory, we will...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Mansfield
The further the little girl leaped and ran,
The further she longed to be;
The white, white fields of jonquil flowers
Danced up as high as her knee
And flashed and sparkled before her eyes
Until she could hardly see.
So into the wood went she.
It was quiet in the wood,
It was solemn and grave;
A sound like a wave
Sighed in the tree-tops
And then sighed no...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
This quiet Dust was Gentleman and Ladies
And Lads and Girls --
Was laughter and ability and Sighing
And Frocks and Curls.
This Passive Place a Summer's nimble mansion
Where Bloom and Bees
Exists an Oriental Circuit
Then cease, like these --...Read more of this...
by
Christina Rossetti
Gone were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;
Where in the whitethorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.
Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool green house:
Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
"We spread no snare;
"Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.
"Here...Read more of this...
by
Emma Lazarus
THE MIGHT that shaped itself through storm and stress
In chaos, here is lulled in breathing sweet;
Under the long brown ridge in gentleness
Its fierce old pulses beat.
Quiet and sad we go at eve; the fire
That woke exultant in an earlier day
Is dead; the memories of old desire
Only in shadows play.
We liken love to this and that; our thought
The...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Patience -- has a quiet Outer --
Patience -- Look within --
Is an Insect's futile forces
Infinites -- between --
'Scaping one -- against the other
Fruitlesser to fling --
Patience -- is the Smile's exertion
Through the quivering --...Read more of this...
by
Eliza Cook
THE ORB I like is not the one
That dazzles with its lightning gleam;
That dares to look upon the sun,
As though it challenged brighter beam.
That orb may sparkle, flash, and roll;
Its fire may blaze, its shaft may fly;
But not for me: I prize the soul
That slumbers in a quiet eye.
There ’s something...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
You can't put in the ground swell of the organ
from the Christiansted, St.Croix, Anglican Church
behind the paratrooper's voice: "Turned cop
after Vietnam. I made thirty jumps."
Bells punish the dead street and pigeons lurch
from the stone belfry, opening their chutes,
circling until the rings of ringing stop.
"Salud!" The paratrooper's glass is raised.
The congregation rises to its feet
like a patrol, with scuffling shoes...Read more of this...
by
Li Po
Before my bed
there is bright moonlight
So that it seems
Like frost on the ground:
Lifting my head
I watch the bright moon,
Lowering my head
I dream that I'm home....Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
There still are kindly things for me to know,
Who am afraid to dream, afraid to feel-
This little chair of scrubbed and sturdy deal,
This easy book, this fire, sedate and slow.
And I shall stay with them, nor cry the woe
Of wounds across my breast that do not heal;
Nor wish that Beauty drew a duller steel,
Since I am sworn to meet...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
It was a humble church, with arches low,
The church we entered there,
Where many a weary soul since long ago
Had past with plaint or prayer.
Mournful and still it was at day's decline,
The day we entered there;
As in a loveless heart, at the lone shrine,
The fires...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Sweet, bide with me and let my love
Be an enduring tether;
Oh, wanton not from spot to spot,
But let us dwell together.
You've come each morn to sip the sweets
With which you found me dripping,
Yet never knew it was not dew
But tears that you were sipping.
You gambol over honey meads
Where siren bees are humming;
But mine the fate to watch and wait
For...Read more of this...
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