Famous Seed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Mating

by D. H. Lawrence
 Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind, 
The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, 
And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,
The wild anemones lie 
In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters ply 
White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; 
And, look you, floating just thereby, 
The blue-gleamed drake stems...Read more of this...

In the mosque, in the medresseh (school annexed to

by Omar Khayyam
In the mosque, in the medresseh [school annexed to
the mosque], in the church, and in the synagogue, they
have a horror of Hell and seek for Paradise, but the seed
of such disquiet never germinates in the hearts of those
who penetrate the secrets of the All-Powerful....Read more of this...

To Walt Whitman In America

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,
And blown as a tree through and through
With the winds of the keen mountain-passes,
And tender...Read more of this...

The Seed-At-Zero

by Dylan Thomas
 The seed-at-zero shall not storm
That town of ghosts, the trodden womb,
With her rampart to his tapping,
No god-in-hero tumble down
Like a tower on the town
Dumbly and divinely stumbling
Over the manwaging line.

The seed-at-zero shall not storm
That town of ghosts, the manwaged tomb
With her rampart to his tapping,
No god-in-hero tumble down
Like a tower on the town
Dumbly and divinely leaping
Over the warbearing line.

Through...Read more of this...

The Hemp

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 (A Virginia Legend.) 

The Planting of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas 
(Black is the gap below the plank) 
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees 
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank). 

His fear was on the seaport towns, 
The weight of his hand held hard the downs. 
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and...Read more of this...

A Seed

by William Allingham
 See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down, 
And through the Winter neglected lay, 
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown, 
With tiny root taking hold on the clay 
As, lifting and strengthening day by day, 
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves, 
And cell after cell the Power in it weaves 
Out of the storehouse of soil...Read more of this...

Song for All Seas All Ships

by Walt Whitman
 1
TO-DAY a rude brief recitative, 
Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal; 
Of unnamed heroes in the ships—Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;

Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing; 
And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations,
Fitful, like a surge. 

Of Sea-Captains young...Read more of this...

Dumb

by Aleister Crowley
 Gabriel whispered in mine ear
His archangelic poesie.
How can I write? I only hear
The sobbing murmur of the sea.

Raphael breathed and bade me pass
His rapt evangel to mankind;
I cannot even match, alas!
The ululation of the wind.

The gross grey gods like gargoyles spit
On every poet's holy head;
No mustard-seed of truth or wit
In those curst furrows, quick or dead!

A tithe of what...Read more of this...

The Daguerreotype

by William Vaughn Moody
 This, then, is she, 
My mother as she looked at seventeen, 
When she first met my father. Young incredibly, 
Younger than spring, without the faintest trace 
Of disappointment, weariness, or tean 
Upon the childlike earnestness and grace 
Of the waiting face. 
Those close-wound ropes of pearl 
(Or common beads made precious by their use) 
Seem heavy for so slight...Read more of this...

Requiem

by Anna Akhmatova
 Not under foreign skies
 Nor under foreign wings protected -
 I shared all this with my own people
 There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
 [1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her...Read more of this...

Watching The Mayan Women

by Luisa Villani
 I hang the window inside out
 like a shirt drying in a breeze
and the arms that are missing come to me
 Yes, it's a song, one I don't quite comprehend
although I do understand the laundry.
 White ash and rain water, a method
my aunt taught me, but I'll never know
 how she learned it in Brooklyn. Her mind
has gone to...Read more of this...

Hymn 129

by Isaac Watts
 Submission and deliverance; or, Abraham offering up his son.

Gen. 22:6, etc. 

Saints, at your heav'nly Father's word
Give up your comforts to the Lord;
He shall restore what you resign,
Or grant you blessings more divine.

So Abram with obedient hand
Led forth his son at God's command;
The wood, the fire, the knife, he took,
His arm prepared the dreadful stroke.

"Abram, forbear!" the angel cried,
Thy...Read more of this...

The Metamorphosis Of Plants

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THOU art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold 
union

Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another

Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could...Read more of this...

Hymn 143

by Isaac Watts
 Characters of the children of God. From several scriptures.

So new-born babes desire the breast,
To feed, and grow, and thrive;
So saints with joy the gospel taste,
And by the gospel live.

[With inward gust their heart approves
All that the word relates;
They love the men their Father loves,
And hate the works he hates.]

[Not all the flatt'ring baits on earth
Can make them slaves to...Read more of this...

Putting in the Seed

by Robert Frost
 You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave...Read more of this...

the seed of endymion

by Rg Gregory
 or how most great achievements
 stem from accidental discoveries

two beauties are a joy for ever
ejaculated keats
lusting in ecstasy towards
well-breasted fanny brawne

no no my dearest john
sighed fanny
facing the quivering man
you've got it wrong -from where i am
she whispered - creeping
downwards with her hands
it's better said
a thing of beauty is a joy for ever

the poet leapt with pleasure
at such passionate emendation
he...Read more of this...

Seed

by Kathleen Raine
 From star to star, from sun and spring and leaf,
And almost audible flowers whose sound is silence,
And in the common meadows, springs the seed of life.

Now the lilies open, and the rose
Released by summer from the harmless graves
That, centuries deep, are in the air we breathe,
And in our earth, and in our daily bread.

External and innate dimensions hold
The living...Read more of this...

Longing is like the Seed

by Emily Dickinson
 Longing is like the Seed
That wrestles in the Ground,
Believing if it intercede
It shall at length be found.

The Hour, and the Clime --
Each Circumstance unknown,
What Constancy must be achieved
Before it see the Sun!...Read more of this...

The Death Of Kwasind

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Far and wide among the nations
Spread the name and fame of Kwasind;
No man dared to strive with Kwasind,
No man could compete with Kwasind.
But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies,
They the envious Little People,
They the fairies and the pygmies,
Plotted and conspired against him.
"If this hateful Kwasind," said they,
"If this great, outrageous fellow
Goes on thus a little longer,
Tearing everything he touches,
Rending everything to pieces,
Filling...Read more of this...

He, in whose bosom wisdom's seed is sown,

by Omar Khayyam
He, in whose bosom wisdom's seed is sown,
To waste a single day was never known;
Either he strives to work great Allah's will,
Or else exalts the cup, and works his own....Read more of this...

Amoretti LXXIX: Men Call you Fair

by Edmund Spenser
 Men call you fair, and you do credit it,
For that your self ye daily such do see:
But the true fair, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fair it be,
Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue:
But only that is permanent and free
From frail corruption, that doth...Read more of this...

Eleanor Wilner

by Eleanor Wilner
 It was a pure white cloud that hung there
in the blue, or a jellyfish on a waveless
sea, suspended high above us; we were
the creatures in the weeds below.
It seemed so effortless in its suspense, 
perfectly out of time and out of place
like the ghost of moon in the sky
of a brilliant afternoon.
After a while it seemed to grow, and...Read more of this...

The Seed

by Robert William Service
 I was a seed that fell
 In silver dew;
And nobody could tell,
 For no one knew;
No one could tell my fate,
 As I grew tall;
None visioned me with hate,
 No, none at all.

A sapling I became,
 Blest by the sun;
No rumour of my shame
 Had any one.
Oh I was proud indeed,
 And sang with glee,
When from a tiny seed
...Read more of this...

Paradise Seed

by Kathleen Raine
 Where is the seed 
Of the tree felled, 
Of the forest burned, 
Or living root 
Under ash and cinders? 
From woven bud 
What last leaf strives 
Into life, last 
Shrivelled flower?
Is fruit of our harvest,
Our long labour
Dust to the core?
To what far, fair land 
Borne on the wind 
What winged seed 
Or spark of fire 
From holocaust 
To kindle...Read more of this...

Dream Song 48: He yelled at me in Greek

by John Berryman
 He yelled at me in Greek,
my God!-”It's not his language
and I'm no good at-”his Aramaic,
was-”I am a monoglot of English
(American version) and, say pieces from
a baker's dozen others: where's the bread?

but rising in the Second Gospel, pal:
The seed goes down, god dies,
a rising happens,
some crust, and then occurs an eating. He said so,
a Greek idea,
troublesome to imaginary Jews,

like a...Read more of this...

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