Famous Reflection Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Reflection poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous reflection poems. These examples illustrate what a famous reflection poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
George (Lord) Byron
Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov'd recollection
Embitters the present, compar'd with the past;
Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection,
And friendships were form'd, too romantic to last;
Where fancy, yet, joys to retrace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is deny'd!
Again I revisit...Read more of this...
by
Seamus Heaney
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A...Read more of this...
by
Lam Quang My
The grey asphalt road
Coated with white snow
Looks well
but people slip and fall
Smeared with sand
The road is safe
But sadly asks itself:
“Is this a change for the better?”...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
'Tis years, soubrette, since last we met;
And yet--ah, yet, how swift and tender
My thoughts go back in time's dull track
To you, sweet pink of female gender!
I shall not say--though others may--
That time all human joy enhances;
But the same old thrill comes to me still
With memories of your songs and dances.
Soubrettish ways these latter days
Invite my praise, but never get...Read more of this...
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend;
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream.
And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As...Read more of this...
by
William Allingham
Chequer'd with woven shadows as I lay
Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,
I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay
Most idly floating in the noontide beam.
Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway
Of ocean's giant pulsing, and the Dream,
Buoyed like the young moon on a level stream
Of greenish vapour at decline of...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Here droops the muse! while from her glowing mind,
Celestial Sympathy, with humid eye,
Bids the light Sylph capricious Fancy fly,
Time's restless wings with transient flowr's to bind!
For now, with folded arms and head inclin'd,
Reflection pours the deep and frequent sigh,
O'er the dark scroll of human destiny,
Where gaudy buds and wounding thorns are twin'd.
O! Sky-born VIRTUE! sacred is thy name!
And though...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
A girl whose cheeks are covered with paint
Has an advantage with me over one whose ain't....Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a lot of nonscience;
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and income soon quadruples....Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
He. Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.
She. An image of my heart that is smitten through
Out of all likelihood, or reason,
And when at last,
Youth's bitterness being past,
I had thought that all my...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
Affection is a noble quality;
It leads to generosity and jollity.
But it also leads to breach of promise
If you go around lavishing it on red-hot momise....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
A worldly love knows not how to produce reflection.
It is like a fire half extinguished which no longer gives
heat. A true love should know neither tranquillity, nor
repose, nor nourishment, nor sleep for months and years,
day nor night.
320...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
THE warder looks down at the mid hour of night,
On the tombs that lie scatter'd below:
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,
And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another opes wide,
And women and men stepping forth are descried,
In cerements snow-white and trailing.
In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch,
And...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
GUID-MORNIN’ to our Majesty!
May Heaven augment your blisses
On ev’ry new birth-day ye see,
A humble poet wishes.
My bardship here, at your Levee
On sic a day as this is,
Is sure an uncouth sight to see,
Amang thae birth-day dresses
Sae fine this day.
I see ye’re complimented thrang,
By mony a lord an’ lady;
“God save the King” ’s a...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d
alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XV. In quella parte dov' Amor mi sprona. HE FINDS HER IMAGE EVERYWHERE. When Love, fond Love, commands the strain,The coyest muse must sure obey;Love bids my wounded breast complain,And whispers the melodious lay:Yet when such griefs restrain the muse's wing,How shall she dare to soar, or how attempt...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
Empty chocolate boxes, a pillowcase with an orange at the bottom,
Nuts and tinsel with its idiosyncratic rustle and brilliant sheen
And the reflection in it of paper-chains hand-made and stuck with
Flour-paste stretching from the light-bowl to every corner of the room.
Father Christmas himself was plastic and his vast stomach painted red
With a bulging sack behind his back and he was...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
THEL'S MOTTO
1 Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
2 Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
3 Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
4 Or Love in a golden bowl?
I
1.1 The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,
1.2 All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,
1.3 To...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.
I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct! -
So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
The Sun revolving on his axis turns,
And with creative fire intensely burns;
Impell'd by forcive air, our Earth supreme,
Rolls with the planets round the solar gleam.
First Mercury completes his transient year,
Glowing, refulgent, with reflected glare;
Bright Venus occupies a wider way,
The early harbinger of night and day;
More distant still our globe terraqueous turns,...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
O THOU, whose sober precepts can controul
The wild impatience of the troubled soul,
Sweet Nymph serene ! whose all-consoling pow'r
Awakes to calm delight the ling'ring hour;
O hear thy suppliant's ardent pray'r !
Chase from my pensive mind corroding care,
Steal thro' the heated pulses of the brain,
Charm sorrow to reposeand lull the throb of pain....Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Perhaps it's no more than the fire's reflection
on some piece of gleaming furniture
that the child remembers so much later
like a revelation.
And if in his later life, one day
wounds him like so many others,
it's because he mistook some risk
or other for a promise.
Let's not forget the music, either,
that soon had hauled him
toward absence complicated
by an overflowing heart.......Read more of this...
by
Federico García Lorca
Oranges
do not grow in the sea
neither is there love in Sevilla.
You in Dark and the I the sun that's hot,
loan me your parasol.
I'll wear my jealous reflection,
juice of lemon and lime-
and your words,
your sinful little words-
will swim around awhile.
Oranges
do not grow in the sea,
Ay, love!
And there is no love in Sevilla!...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Reflection poems.