Famous Sands Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Through The Metodja To Abd-El-Kadr

by Robert Browning
 1842

I

As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my guide,
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I ride,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our Tribes confide,
Is descried, ways untried
As I ride, as I ride.

II

As I ride, as I ride
To our Chief and his Allied,
Who dares chide my heart's pride
As I ride, as I ride?
Or...Read more of this...

Lion And Lioness

by Edwin Markham
 ONE night we were together, you and I, 
And had unsown Assyria for a lair, 
Before the walls of Babylon rose in air. 
How languid hills were heaped along the sky, 
And white bones marked the wells of alkali, 
When suddenly down the lion-path a sound . . . 
The wild man-odor . . . then a crouch, a...Read more of this...

Nocturne III

by Jose Asuncion Silva
 One night 
one night all full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings;
one night 
in which fantastic fireflies burnt in the humid nuptial shadows, 
slowly by my side, pressed altogether close, silent and pale, 
as if a presentiment of infinite bitternesses 
agitated you unto the most hidden fibers of your being,
along the flowering path which crosses the plain
you...Read more of this...

Walking on the Estuary Hill

by Adrian Green
 The curlew and the heron call,
the hissing mud and whispering wings
beat eery through the idle air
until the moonlit midnight silence falls
and then the tide flows softly
through the gut and sluice of estuary sands
and dark against the dreamlit sky
the trees arise from hedgerows,
and the hills
alive with monstrous shapes
are menacing with soundless fear,
and still below the blundering man,
the beery and uncertain...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts LVIII: Things Throng and Laugh

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Things throng and laugh loud in the sky; the sands and dust dance
and whirl like children. Man's mind is aroused by their shouts; his
thoughts long to be the playmates of things.
Our dreams, drifting in the stream of the vague, stretch their
arms to clutch the earth, -their efforts stiffen into bricks and
stones, and thus the city of man is built.
Voices...Read more of this...

To Find God

by Robert Herrick
Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind?
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixed in that wat'ry theater,
And taste thou them as saltless there,
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshivered into seeds of rain.
Tell me the motes, dust,...Read more of this...

482. Song—Pretty Peg my dearie

by Robert Burns
 AS I gaed up by yon gate-end,
 When day was waxin’ weary,
Wha did I meet come down the street,
 But pretty Peg, my dearie!


Her air sae sweet, an’ shape complete,
 Wi’ nae proportion wanting,
The Queen of Love did never move
 Wi’ motion mair enchanting.


Wi’ linkèd hands we took the sands,
 Adown yon winding river;
Oh, that sweet hour and shady...Read more of this...

Song of the Lotos-Eaters

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
THERE is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 5 
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And...Read more of this...

The Voice of the Lobster

by Lewis Carroll
 ''Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But,...Read more of this...

Lyric of Love to Leah

by Aleister Crowley
 Come, my darling, let us dance
To the moon that beckons us
To dissolve our love in trance
Heedless of the hideous
Heat & hate of Sirius-
Shun his baneful brilliance!

Let us dance beneath the palm
Moving in the moonlight, frond
Wooing frond above the calm
Of the ocean diamond
Sparkling to the sky beyond
The enchantment of our psalm.

Let us dance, my mirror of
Perfect passion won to peace,
Let...Read more of this...

Ode To Beauty

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women...Read more of this...

Upon Time

by Robert Herrick
 Time was upon
The wing, to fly away;
And I call'd on
Him but awhile to stay;
But he'd be gone,
For aught that I could say.

He held out then
A writing, as he went,
And ask'd me, when
False man would be content
To pay again
What God and Nature lent.

An hour-glass,
In which were sands but few,
As he did pass,
He shew'd,--and told me too
Mine end near was;--
And so...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIII: To Aetnas Scorching Sands

by Mary Darby Robinson
 To AEtna's scorching sands my Phaon flies!
False Youth! can other charms attractive prove?
Say, can Sicilian loves thy passions move,
Play round thy heart, and fix thy fickle eyes,
While in despair the Lesbian Sappho dies?
Has Spring for thee a crown of poppies wove,
Or dost thou languish in th' Idalian grove,
Whose altar kindles, fann'd by Lover's sighs?
Ah! think, that while on AEtna's...Read more of this...

Lepanto

by G K Chesterton
 White founts falling in the Courts of the sun, 
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; 
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, 
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard; 
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips; 
For the inmost sea of all the...Read more of this...

The Glove

by Robert Browning
 (PETER RONSARD _loquitur_.)

``Heigho!'' yawned one day King Francis,
``Distance all value enhances!
``When a man's busy, why, leisure
``Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
`` 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
``Straightway he wants to be busy.
``Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
``Caught thinking war the true pastime.
``Is there a reason in metre?
``Give us your speech, master Peter!''
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er...Read more of this...

I

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Heigho, but the world is gloomy;
The light has failed and the lamp down hurled,
Leaves only darkness to me.
Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Ah me, but the world is dreary;
The night is down, and my curtain furled
But I cannot sleep, though weary.
Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Alas...Read more of this...

The Widows Home

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Close on the margin of a brawling brook
That bathes the low dell's bosom, stands a Cot;
O'ershadow'd by broad Alders. At its door
A rude seat, with an ozier canopy
Invites the weary traveller to rest.
'Tis a poor humble dwelling; yet within,
The sweets of joy domestic, oft have made
The long hour not unchearly, while the Moor
Was covered with deep snow, and the...Read more of this...

Frolic

by George William Russell
 THE CHILDREN were shouting together
And racing along the sands,
A glimmer of dancing shadows,
A dovelike flutter of hands.


The stars were shouting in heaven,
The sun was chasing the moon:
The game was the same as the children’s,
They danced to the self-same tune.


The whole of the world was merry,
One joy from the vale to the height,
Where the blue woods of twilight encircled
The lovely...Read more of this...

Australia

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey 
In the field uniform of modern wars, 
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws 
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away. 

They call her a young country, but they lie: 
She is the last of lands, the emptiest, 
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast 
Still tender...Read more of this...

Sicilian Lullaby

by Eugene Field
 Hush, little one, and fold your hands;
The sun hath set, the moon is high;
The sea is singing to the sands,
And wakeful posies are beguiled
By many a fairy lullaby:
Hush, little child, my little child!

Dream, little one, and in your dreams
Float upward from this lowly place,--
Float out on mellow, misty streams
To lands where bideth Mary mild,
And let her kiss thy little...Read more of this...

The English Flag

by Rudyard Kipling
 Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack,
remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately
when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts,
and seemed to see significance in the incident. -- DAILY PAPERS.


Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro --
And what should they know of England who only England know?...Read more of this...

An Imperial Rescript

by Rudyard Kipling
 Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed,
To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need,
He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat,
That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set.

The Lords of Their Hands assembled; from the East and...Read more of this...

The Sands of Dee

by Charles Kingsley
 1 "O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
2 And call the cattle home,
3 And call the cattle home
4 Across the sands of Dee";
5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
6 And all alone went she.

7 The western tide crept up along the sand,
8 And o'er and o'er the sand,
9 And round and round the sand,
10 As...Read more of this...

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

by John Ashbery
 Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St. Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud. But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained...Read more of this...

One Step Backward Taken

by Robert Frost
 Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels,
But gulping muddy gallons
Great boulders off their balance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices.
I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis.
But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.
Then the rain stopped and the blowing,
And the sun...Read more of this...

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