Famous Reflections Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Reflections poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous reflections poems. These examples illustrate what a famous reflections poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ted Hughes
I saw my world again through your eyes
As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
Through your eyes it was foreign.
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
Emerged at a point of exclamation
As if it had appeared to dinner guests
In the middle of the table. Common mallards
Were artefacts...Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
I
What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
ous hand, named for Death's planet through the
sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of
Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She wooes the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o'er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the skylark warbles high
His trembling thrilling...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
I sat on a low stone wall
Watching the blue blood of the azaleas
Spatter on Haworth’s cobbles.
A seamless transparency of rain
Lowering over the turning trees
My thoughts drifting to Claudel’s
‘Five Great Odes’, to the stone marker
To the swathes of heather.
I stood on the moor top
Where the tracks cross
The fellside green
The fellside ochre,
Shifting reflections
Of C?zanne’s last winter....Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
At Kotri, by the river, when the evening's sun is low,
The waving palm trees quiver, the golden waters glow,
The shining ripples shiver, descending to the sea;
At Kotri, by the river, she used to wait for me.
So young, she was, and slender, so pale with wistful...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
i
i shall die yearning
a hand
reaching out to
a face that isn't there
a face
seeking a hand
a stone
leaving its mountain-
wall in a wind
anxious to be a bird
a bird
crying to be a wall
ii
north wales
the goat pisses
the hawk hangs
the mountain leans forward out of the mist
iii
on this hill
between the stone wind
and the wall of stones
i am a hollow
scooped out by the sun
my substance dropped
over...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
(For Aline)
Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.
It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me...Read more of this...
by
Majeed Amjad
Here she comes, onto her “rooftop-terrace,” smiling
With a muted message in her fleeting glance !
This hazy air tinged with dusky reflections,
This desolate path … deserted lane … quiet evening,
The low wall of a house at the street corner,
Upon which is gently laid
A diffuse and silent spell !
This rooftop-terrace … familiar
With the sound of someone’s soft step,
This secluded place...Read more of this...
by
Robert Creeley
Most explicit--
the sense of trap
as a narrowing
cone one's got
stuck into and
any movement
forward simply
wedges once more--
but where
or quite when,
even with whom,
since now there is no one
quite with you--Quite? Quiet?
English expression: Quait?
Language of singular
impedance? A dance? An
involuntary gesture to
others not there? What's
wrong here? How
reach out to the
other side all
others live on as
now you see the
two doctors, behind
you, in mind's eye,
probe into...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Part One
The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.
My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty.
Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
SWEET CHILD OF REASON! maid serene;
With folded arms, and pensive mien,
Who wand'ring near yon thorny wild,
So oft, my length'ning hours beguil'd;
Thou, who within thy peaceful call,
Canst laugh at LIFE'S tumultuous care,
While calm repose delights to dwell
On beds of fragrant roses there;
Where meek-ey'd PATIENCE waits to greet
The woe-worn Trav'ller's weary feet,...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Four Translations
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels,
flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise
in tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections;
the whole region, from the highest heron
down to the weightless mangrove island
with bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings
like illumination in silver,
and down to the suggestively Gothic...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
All that this world contains are but images and flourishes
of fiction. Ill-advised is he who does not comprehend
his place in the number of these images. Repose,
thou, friend, drink a cup of wine, give thyself up to joy
and thus be delivered from all these vain figures, from
these impossible reflections [which come to assail thy
mind].
343...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Chill penury repress'd his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY.
IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven,
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven !
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way
To the bland regions of celestial day;
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Athwart the harbor lingers yet
The ashen gleam of breaking day,
And where the guardian cliffs are set
The noiseless shadows steal away;
But all the winnowed eastern sky
Is flushed with many a tender hue,
And spears of light are smiting through
The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly.
Across the ocean, wan and gray,
Gay fleets of golden ripples come,
For at the birth-hour of the day
The roistering,...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
"Fate snatch'd him early to the pitying sky."
- POPE.
IF WORTH, too early to the grave consign'd,
Can claim the pitying tear, or touch the mind ?
If manly sentiments unstain'd by art,
Could waken FRIENDSHIP, or delight the heart ?
Ill-fated youth ! to THEE the MUSE shall pay
The last sad tribute of a mournful lay;
On thy lone grave shall MAY'S soft...Read more of this...
by
Marriott Edgar
Mr. Ramsbottom went to the races,
A thing as he'd ne'er done before,
And as luck always follers beginners,
Won five pounds, no-less and no-more.
He felt himself suddenly tempted
To indulge in some reckless orgee,
So he went to a caffy-a-teerer
And had a dressed crab with his tea.
He were crunching the claws at the finish
And wondering what next he would...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Gently grass soft wind shore Tall mast alone night boat Stars fall flat fields broad Moon rises great river flows Name not literary works mark Official should old sick stop Flutter flutter what place seem Heaven earth one sand gull Gentle breeze on grass by the shore, The boat's tall mast alone at night. Stars fall...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
How calm, how beauteous and how cool--
How like a sister to the skies,
Appears the broad, transparent pool
That in this quiet forest lies.
The sunshine ripples on its face,
And from the world around, above,
It hath caught down the nameless grace
Of such reflections as we love.
But deep below its surface crawl
The reptile horrors of the night--
The dragons, lizards, serpents--all
The hideous brood that...Read more of this...
by
Yves Bonnefoy
I woke up, it was the house where I was born.
It was raining softly in all the rooms,
I went from one to another, looking at
The water that shone on the mirrors
Piled up everywhere, some broken or even
Pushed between the furniture and the walls.
It was from these reflections that sometimes a face
Would emerge, laughing, of a gentleness
That was different...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
song of sea-leaves in an orchestra of foam
branches of violins sprayed across the mind
what is magnetic in a wave breaking white
drawing the chords of evening to a single sound
i would liken your hair to a slow movement
of seagulls in the wind catching my eye
by sheer virtue of design - i could nest there
as naturally as the anemones nest...Read more of this...
by
Adrienne Rich
1
You, once a belle in Shreveport,
with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud,
still have your dresses copied from that time,
and play a Chopin prelude
called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections
float like perfume through the memory."
Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake,
heavy with useless experience, rich
with suspicion, rumor, fantasy,
crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge
of mere fact. In the prime of your life.
Nervy, glowering,...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
HOW shallow is this mere that gleams!
Its depth of blue is from the skies,
And from a distant sun the dreams
And lovely light within your eyes.
We deem our love so infinite
Because the Lord is everywhere,
And love awakening is made bright
And bathed in that diviner air.
We go on our enchanted way
And deem our hours immortal hours,
Who are but shadow kings that...Read more of this...
by
Adrienne Rich
This is the grass your feet are planted on.
You paint it orange or you sing it green,
But you have never found
A way to make the grass mean what you mean.
A cloud can be whatever you intend:
Ostrich or leaning tower or staring eye.
But you have never found
A cloud sufficient to express the sky.
Get out there with your splendid expertise;
Raymond who...Read more of this...
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