Famous Rafter Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Rafter poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous rafter poems. These examples illustrate what a famous rafter poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers --
Untouched my Morning
And untouched by Noon --
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection --
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them --
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence --
Ah, what sagacity perished here!...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
The way Hope builds his House
It is not with a sill --
Nor Rafter -- has that Edifice
But only Pinnacle --
Abode in as supreme
This superficies
As if it were of Ledges smit
Or mortised with the Laws --...Read more of this...
by
Maxine Kumin
Up attic, Lucas Harrison, God rest
his frugal bones, once kept a tidy account
by knifecut of some long-gone harvest.
The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt
the year: 1811, the score: 10, he carved
into the center rafter to represent
his loves, beatings, losses, hours, or maybe
the butternuts that taxed his back and starved
the red squirrels higher up each scabbed...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
WHEN the lamp is shatter'd
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scatter'd
The rainbow's glory is shed;
When the lute is broken 5
Sweet tones are remember'd not
When the lips have spoken
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute 10
The heart's...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
CHILD, when they say that others
Have been or are like you,
Babes fit to be your brothers,
Sweet human drops of dew,
Bright fruit of mortal mothers,
What should one say or do?
We know the thought is treason,
We feel the dream absurd;
A claim rebuked of reason,
That withers at a word:
For never shone the season
That bore so blithe a bird.
Some smiles may seem as...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.
It charmed away the merchant from his guile,
And turned the farmer's memory from his cattle,
And hushed in sleep the roaring ranks of battle:
And all grew friendly for a little while.
Ah,...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
I
Over the yawning chimney hangs the fog. Drip
-- hiss -- drip -- hiss --
fall the raindrops on the oaken log which burns, and steams,
and smokes the ceiling beams. Drip -- hiss -- the rain
never stops.
The wide, state bed shivers beneath its velvet coverlet. Above,
dim,
in the smoke, a tarnished coronet gleams dully. Overhead
hammers and chinks
the rain....Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Way up at the top of a big stack of straw
Was the cunningest parlor that ever you saw!
And there could you lie when aweary of play
And gossip or laze in the coziest way;
No matter how careworn or sorry one's mood
No worldly distraction presumed to intrude.
As a refuge from onerous mundane ado
I think I approve of straw parlors, don't you?
A...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
God made the wicked Grocer
For a mystery and a sign,
That men might shun the awful shops
And go to inns to dine;
Where the bacon's on the rafter
And the wine is in the wood,
And God that made good laughter
Has seen that they are good.
The evil-hearted Grocer
Would call his mother "Ma'am,"
And bow at her and bob at her,
Her aged soul to damn,
And...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Kong ming temple before be old cypress Branch like green bronze root like stone Frost bark slippery rain 40 spans Black colour meet sky 2000 feet Emperor and minister already with time end meet Tree tree still be man devotion Cloud come air meet Wu gorge long Moon out cold with snow mountain white Remember old road...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead --
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute --
No song but...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"The House Surgeon"--Actions and Reactions 2 Samuel XIV. 14.
If Thought can reach to Heaven,
On Heaven let it dwell,
For fear the Thought be given
Like power to reach to Hell.
For fear the desolation
And darkness of thy mind
Perplex an habitation
Which thou hast left behind.
Let nothing linger after--
No whimpering gost remain,
In wall, or beam, or rafter,
Of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone;
In his grotto the maiden sits alone.
She gazes up with a weary smile
At the rafter-hanging crocodile,
The slowly swinging crocodile.
Scorn has she of her master’s gear,
Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere,
Phial, philtre—“Fiddlededee
For all such trumpery trash!” quo’ she.
“A soldier is the lad for me;
Hey...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Though Virtue hurt you Vice is nice;
Aye, Parson says it's wrong,
Yet for my pleasing I'll suffice
With Women, Wine and Song.
But though it be with jocund glee
my tavern voice is ringing,
Had I to chuck on of the three,
By gad! I'd give up singing.
Bu not the vine. What draught divine
Could better souse my throttle?
God never meant that mellow wine
Should languish in...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Outside the afterlight's lucent rose
Is smiting the hills and brimming the valleys,
And shadows are stealing across the snows;
From the mystic gloom of the pineland alleys.
Glamour of mingled night and day
Over the wide, white world has sway,
And through their prisoning azure bars,
Gaze the calm, cold eyes of the early stars.
But here, in this long,...Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
With saddest music all day long
She soothed her secret sorrow:
At night she sighed "I fear 'twas wrong
Such cheerful words to borrow.
Dearest, a sweeter, sadder song
I'll sing to thee to-morrow."
I thanked her, but I could not say
That I was glad to hear it:
I left the house at break of day,
And did not venture near it
Till time, I hoped, had...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
"I'll introduce a friend!" he said,
"And if you've got a vacant pen
You'd better take him in the shed
And start him shearing straight ahead;
He's one of these here quiet men.
"He never strikes -- that ain't his game;
No matter what the others try
He goes on shearing just the same.
I never rightly knew his...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Down, you mongrel, Death!
Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
Many a night, and you shall worry
Many a bone, before you bury
One sweet bone of mine!
When shall I be dead?
When my flesh is withered,
And above my head
Yellow pollen gathered
All the empty afternoon?
When sweet lovers pause and wonder
Whom am I that...Read more of this...
by
James Whitcomb Riley
INSCRIBED WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION
To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
There lies the trail to Sunnydale,
Amid the lure of laughter.
Oh, how can we unhappy be
Beneath its leafy rafter!
Each perfect hour is like a flower,
Each day is like a posy.
How can you say the skies are grey?
You're wrong, my friend, they're rosy.
With right good will let's climb the hill,
And leave behind all sorrow.
Oh, we'll be gay! a bright to-day
Will make...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
He is said to have been the last Red man
In Action. And the Miller is said to have laughed--
If you like to call such a sound a laugh.
But he gave no one else a laugher's license.
For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,
'Whose business,--if I take it on myself,
Whose business--but why talk round the barn?--
When it's just that...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.
The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls,
And the big building bends and twists and groans.
A bar drops from its place; a rafter falls
Burning...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Murs, ville et port.")
{XXVIII., Aug. 28, 1828.}
Town, tower,
Shore, deep,
Where lower
Cliff's steep;
Waves gray,
Where play
Winds gay,
All sleep.
Hark! a sound,
Far and slight,
Breathes around
On the night
High and higher,
Nigh and nigher,
...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
WHEN the lamp is shatter'd
The light in the dust lies dead¡ª
When the cloud is scatter'd
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken 5
Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken
Lov'd accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute 10
The heart's echoes...Read more of this...
by
Herman Melville
When ocean-clouds over inland hills
Sweep storming in late autumn brown,
And horror the sodden valley fills,
And the spire falls crashing in the town,
I muse upon my country's ills--
The tempest burning from the waste of Time
On the world's fairest hope linked with man's foulest crime.
Nature's dark side is heeded now--
(Ah! optimist-cheer dishartened flown)--...Read more of this...
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