Famous Scenes Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Between Us Now

by Thomas Hardy
 Between us now and here - 
 Two thrown together 
Who are not wont to wear 
 Life's flushest feather - 
Who see the scenes slide past, 
The daytimes dimming fast, 
Let there be truth at last, 
 Even if despair. 

So thoroughly and long 
 Have you now known me, 
So real in faith and strong 
 Have...Read more of this...

Above Eurunderee

by Henry Lawson
 There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not,
On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot.
Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze
From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees,
There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange,
But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range.

Still I see in my fancy the dark-green and blue
Of the box-covered...Read more of this...

X. On Dover Cliffs

by William Lisle Bowles
 ON these white cliffs, that calm above the flood 
Rear their o'er-shadowing heads, and at their feet 
Scarce hear the surge that has for ages beat, 
Sure many a lonely wanderer has stood; 
And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear, 
And o'er the distant billows the still Eve 
Sail'd slow, has thought of all his heart must leave...Read more of this...

Sail On Sail On

by Thomas Moore
 Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark -- 
Where'er blows the welcome wind, 
It cannot lead to scenes more dark, 
More sad than those we leave behind. 
Each wave that passes seems to say, 
"Though death beneath our smile may be, 
Less cold we are, less false than they, 
Whose smiling wreck'd thy hopes and thee." 

Sail on, sail...Read more of this...

Absence

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 WHEN from the craggy mountain's pathless steep,
Whose flinty brow hangs o'er the raging sea, 
My wand'ring eye beholds the foamy deep,
I mark the restless surge­and think of THEE. 
The curling waves, the passing breezes move, 
Changing and treach'rous as the breath of LOVE; 
The "sad similitude" awakes my smart, 
And thy dear image twines about my heart. 

When at...Read more of this...

At the Mid Hour of Night

by Thomas Moore
 At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly 
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye; 
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air, 
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there, 
And tell me our love is remember'd, even in...Read more of this...

As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free

by Walt Whitman
 1
AS a strong bird on pinions free, 
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, 
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, 
Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. 

The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not,
Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, 
Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of...Read more of this...

On Hearing

by William Lisle Bowles
 O stay, harmonious and sweet sounds, that die 
In the long vaultings of this ancient fane! 
Stay, for I may not hear on earth again 
Those pious airs--that glorious harmony; 
Lifting the soul to brighter orbs on high, 
Worlds without sin or sorrow! Ah, the strain 
Has died--even the last sounds that lingeringly 
Hung on the roof ere they...Read more of this...

To a Lady and Her Children

by Phillis Wheatley
 O'erwhelming sorrow now demands my song:
From death the overwhelming sorrow sprung.
What flowing tears? What hearts with grief opprest?
What sighs on sighs heave the fond parent's breast?
The brother weeps, the hapless sisters join
Th' increasing woe, and swell the crystal brine;
The poor, who once his gen'rous bounty fed,
Droop, and bewail their benefactor dead.
In death the friend, the kind companion lies,
And in...Read more of this...

Frost at Midnight

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud---and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
`Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This...Read more of this...

My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry

by Edward Taylor
 There's a fortune to be made in just about everything
in this country, somebody's father had to invent
everything--baby food, tractors, rat poisoning.
My family's obviously done nothing since the beginning
of time. They invented poverty and bad taste
and getting by and taking it from the boss.
O my mother goes around chewing her nails and
spitting them in a jar: You shouldn't be ashamed
of...Read more of this...

My Mothers Body

by Marge Piercy
 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the...Read more of this...

Summer

by John Clare
 See what delights in sylvan scenes appear!
Descending Gods have found Elysium here. 
In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray'd, 
And chaste Diana haunts the forest shade. 
Come lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours, 
When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs; 
When weary reapers quit the sultry field, 
And crown'd with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield. 
This...Read more of this...

With brutus in st. jo

by Eugene Field
 Of all the opry-houses then obtaining in the West
The one which Milton Tootle owned was, by all odds, the best;
Milt, being rich, was much too proud to run the thing alone,
So he hired an "acting manager," a gruff old man named Krone--
A stern, commanding man with piercing eyes and flowing beard,
And his voice assumed a thunderous tone when Jack...Read more of this...

To Coleridge

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou dost hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee, but they
Cast,...Read more of this...

A New Years Giftsent To Sir Simeon Steward

by Robert Herrick
 No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late spawn'd tittyries;
No closet plot or open vent,
That frights men with a Parliament:
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the State, or wring
The free-born nostril of the King,
We send to you; but here a jolly
Verse crown'd with ivy and with holly;
That...Read more of this...

The Blinded Bourbons

by Victor Hugo
 ("Qui leur eût dit l'austère destineé?") 
 
 {II. v., November, 1836.} 


 Who then, to them{1} had told the Future's story? 
 Or said that France, low bowed before their glory, 
 One day would mindful be 
 Of them and of their mournful fate no more, 
 Than of the wrecks its waters have swept o'er 
...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXVIII. Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi. HE SEEKS SOLITUDE, BUT LOVE FOLLOWS HIM EVERYWHERE.  Alone, and lost in thought, the desert gladeMeasuring I roam with ling'ring steps and slow;And still a watchful glance around me throw,Anxious to shun the print of human tread:No other means I find, no...Read more of this...

Hymn on Solitude

by James Thomson
 Hail, mildly pleasing solitude,
Companion of the wise and good;
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools, and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whisper'd talk,
Which innocence, and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts. 

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A...Read more of this...

Sonnet- To Zante

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is
No more- no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No more! alas, that...Read more of this...

Behind the Scenes

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The actor struts his little hour, 
Between the limelight and the band; 
The public feel the actor's power, 
Yet nothing do they understand 
Of all the touches here and there 
That make or mar the actor's part, 
They never see, beneath the glare, 
The artist striving after art. 
To them it seems a labour slight 
Where nought of study...Read more of this...

To The Miami

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Kiss me, Miami, thou most constant one!
I love thee more for that thou changest not.
When Winter comes with frigid blast,
Or when the blithesome Spring is past
And Summer's here with sunshine hot,
Or in sere Autumn, thou has still the pow'r
To charm alike, whate'er the hour.
Kiss me, Miami, with thy dewy lips;
Throbs fast my heart e'en as thine own breast beats.
My soul...Read more of this...

In Midnight Sleep

by Walt Whitman
 1
IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, 
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded—of that indescribable look; 
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, 
 I dream, I dream, I dream. 

2
Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm—and at night the moon so unearthly bright, 
Shining...Read more of this...

105. Despondency: An Ode

by Robert Burns
 OPPRESS’D with grief, oppress’d with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
 I set me down and sigh;
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
 To wretches such as I!
Dim backward as I cast my view,
 What sick’ning scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me through,
 Too justly I may fear!
 Still caring, despairing,
 Must...Read more of this...

Sonnet 08

by Robert Southey
 With many a weary step, at length I gain
Thy summit, Lansdown; and the cool breeze plays,
Gratefully round my brow, as hence the gaze
Returns to dwell upon the journeyed plain.
'Twas a long way and tedious! to the eye
Tho fair the extended vale, and fair to view
The falling leaves of many a faded hue,
That eddy in the wild gust moaning by.
Even...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Scenes poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace