Famous Rings Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Living Temple

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 NOT in the world of light alone, 
Where God has built his blazing throne, 
Nor yet alone in earth below, 
With belted seas that come and go, 
And endless isles of sunlit green, 
Is all thy Maker's glory seen: 
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,--
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves 
Flows murmuring through its...Read more of this...

On the Bay

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 When the salt wave laps on the long, dim shore,
And frets the reef with its windy sallies,
And the dawn's white light is threading once more
The purple firs in the landward valleys, 
While yet the arms of the wide gray sea 
Are cradling the sunrise that is to be, 
The fisherman's boat, through the mist afar, 
Has sailed in the...Read more of this...

The Cathedral of Rheims

by Joyce Kilmer
 (From the French of Emile Verhaeren)

He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
From radiant dawn until the close of day,
Nearer it grows
To him who goes
Across the country. When tall towers lay
Their shadowy pall
Upon his way,
He enters, where
The solid stone is hollowed...Read more of this...

The River Of Ruin

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Along by the river of ruin
They dally—the thoughtless ones,
They dance and they dream
By the side of the stream,
As long as the river runs.
It seems all so pleasant and cheery—
No thought of the morrow is theirs,
And their faces are bright
With the sun of delight,
And they dream of no night-brooding cares.
The women wear garlanded tresses,
The men have rings on their hands,
And they...Read more of this...

Milton (Alcaics)

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset--
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse and cedar arches
Charm, as a wanderer out...Read more of this...

A Forsaken Garden

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blossomless bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.

The fields fall...Read more of this...

Smoke-Rings

by Robert Graves
 BOY 

Most venerable and learned sir, 
Tall and true Philosopher, 
These rings of smoke you blow all day 
With such deep thought, what sense have they? 

PHILOSOPHER 

Small friend, with prayer and meditation 
I make an image of Creation. 
And if your mind is working nimble 
Straightway you’ll recognize a symbol 
Of the endless and eternal ring 
Of God,...Read more of this...

Bert Kessler

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I winged my bird, 
Though he flew toward the setting sun; 
But just as the shot rang out, he soared 
Up and up through the splinters of golden light, 
Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, 
With some of the down of him floating near, 
And fell like a plummet into the grass. 
I tramped about, parting the tangles,...Read more of this...

The Veils of Maya

by George William Russell
 MOTHER, with whom our lives should be,
Not hatred keeps our lives apart:
Charmed by some lesser glow in thee,
Our hearts beat not within thy heart.


Beauty, the face, the touch, the eyes,
Prophets of thee, allure our sight
From that unfathomed deep where lies
Thine ancient loveliness and light.


Self-found at last, the joy that springs
Being thyself, shall once again
Start thee upon the whirling rings
And...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

The Iron Wedding Rings

by Henry Lawson
 In these days of peace and money, free to all the Commonweal, 
There are ancient dames in Buckland wearing wedding rings of steel; 
Wedding rings of steel and iron, worn on wrinkled hands and old, 
And the wearers would not give them, not for youth nor wealth untold. 

In the days of black oppression, when the best abandoned hope,...Read more of this...

I envy Seas whereon He rides

by Emily Dickinson
 I envy Seas, whereon He rides --
I envy Spokes of Wheels
Of Chariots, that Him convey --
I envy Crooked Hills

That gaze upon His journey --
How easy All can see
What is forbidden utterly
As Heaven -- unto me!

I envy Nests of Sparrows --
That dot His distant Eaves --
The wealthy Fly, upon His Pane --
The happy -- happy Leaves --

That just abroad His...Read more of this...

The Garden of Janus

by Aleister Crowley
 I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with...Read more of this...

Gigolo

by Sylvia Plath
 Pocket watch, I tick well.
The streets are lizardly crevices
Sheer-sided, with holes where to hide.
It is best to meet in a cul-de-sac,

A palace of velvet
With windows of mirrors.
There one is safe,
There are no family photographs,

No rings through the nose, no cries.
Bright fish hooks, the smiles of women
Gulp at my bulk
And I, in my snazzy blacks,

Mill a litter of breasts like...Read more of this...

Banbury Cross

by Mother Goose
Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see an old lady upon a white horse.
Rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes....Read more of this...

Draw up your chair near mine

by Emile Verhaeren
Draw up your chair near mine, and stretch your hands out towards the hearth that I may see between your fingers the old flame burning; and watch the fire quietly with your eyes that fear no light, that they may be for me still franker when a quick and flashing ray strikes to their depths, illuminating them.
Oh! how beautiful and...Read more of this...

I In My Intricate Image

by Dylan Thomas
 I

I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels,
Forged in man's minerals, the brassy orator
Laying my ghost in metal,
The scales of this twin world tread on the double,
My half ghost in armour hold hard in death's corridor,
To my man-iron sidle.

Beginning with doom in the bulb, the spring unravels,
Bright as her spinning-wheels, the colic season
Worked on a world of petals;
She...Read more of this...

The Garden of Proserpine

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days...Read more of this...

An Island

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Take it away, and swallow it yourself. 
Ha! Look you, there’s a rat. 
Last night there were a dozen on that shelf, 
And two of them were living in my hat. 
Look! Now he goes, but he’ll come back—
Ha? But he will, I say … 
Il reviendra-z-à Pâques, 
Ou à la Trinité …
Be very sure that he’ll return again;...Read more of this...

A Call

by George William Russell
 DUSK its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies,
Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise,
Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air.
Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there.
Come, acushla, come, as in ancient times
Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes.
Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece
Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,
So my...Read more of this...

Hymn 123

by Isaac Watts
 The repenting prodigal.

Luke 15:13,etc. 

Behold the wretch whose lust and wine
Had wasted his estate,
He begs a share among the swine,
To taste the husks they eat!

"I die with hunger here," he cries,
"I starve in foreign lands;
My father's house has large supplies
And bounteous are his hands.

"I'll go, and with a mournful tongue
Fall down before his face,-
Father, I've done thy justice wrong,
Nor...Read more of this...

One Ring

by J R R Tolkien
 Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakutulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring...Read more of this...

Fear

by Raymond Carver
 Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I've been told won't...Read more of this...

The Fool Rings His Bells

by Walter de la Mare
 Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee; 
And thou, poor Innocency; 
And Love -- a lad with broken wing; 
Apnd Pity, too; 
The Fool shall sing to you, 
As Fools will sing. 

Ay, music hath small sense, 
And a tune's soon told, 
And Earth is old, 
And my poor wits are dense; 
Yet have I secrets, -- dar,...Read more of this...

An Aquarium

by Amy Lowell
 Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,
Silver shiftings,
Rings veering out of rings,
Silver -- gold --
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles
Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
Swallowing them,
Fish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
The light rippling over them
In steel-bright tremors.
Outspread translucent fins
Flute, fold, and relapse;
The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles
In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up-shifts,
Lazy convolutions:
Then a...Read more of this...

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