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Famous Shadowed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...n the woodland far below, 
So when his moods were darkened, court and King 
And all the kindly warmth of Arthur's hall 
Shadowed an angry distance: yet he strove 
To learn the graces of their Table, fought 
Hard with himself, and seemed at length in peace. 

Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat 
Close-bowered in that garden nigh the hall. 
A walk of roses ran from door to door; 
A walk of lilies crost it to the bower: 
And down that range of roses the great Queen 
Ca...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord



...
I muse on what the years may be 
Whose coming tales are all unsaid, 
Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid 
Within their shadowed niches, grow 

By grim degrees to pick and spade, 
As one by one the phantoms go. 

But then, what though the mystic Three 
Around me ply their merry trade? -- 
And Charon soon may carry me 
Across the gloomy Stygian glade? -- 

Be up, my soul! nor be afraid 
Of what some unborn year may show; 
But mind your human debts are paid, 
As one by one the ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...d Montaigne.
But would footsteps beyond the bathroom door's
bolt have disturbed the nondescript interior's
familiarity, shadowed the plain
blue draperies? You reflect, you know no one
who would, of you, echo your author's
"Because it was he; because it was I,"
as a unique friendship's non sequitur.
No footsteps and no friend: that makes you free.
The train approaches, wreathed in smoke like fur
around the shoulders of a dowager
with no time for sentimentality.

With no time f...Read more of this...
by Hacker, Marilyn
...like to a curious maze;
Which breaking forth the tender grass bedewed,
Whose silver sand with orient pearl was strewed,
Shadowed with roses and sweet eglantine,
Dipping their sprays into this crystalline;
From which the birds the purple berries pruned,
And to their loves their small recorders tuned,
The nightingale, wood's herald of the spring,
The whistling woosel, mavis carolling,
Tuning their trebles to the waters' fall,
Which made the music more angelical;
Whilst gentle Z...Read more of this...
by Drayton, Michael
...t stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land....Read more of this...
by Johnson, James Weldon



...nt door and back of the mossed old farmhouse
Open with the morn, and in a breezy link
Freshly sparkles garden to stripe-shadowed orchard,
Green across a rill where on sand the minnows wink.
Busy in the grass the early sun of summer
Swarms, and the blackbird's mellow fluting notes
Call my darling up with round and roguish challenge:
Quaintest, richest carol of all the singing throats!

Cool was the woodside; cool as her white dairy
Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the bo...Read more of this...
by Meredith, George
...Gambol with look, and almost bark, of joy-- 
Still seems, though centuries have passed, to stay. 
Then gaze again, that shadowed scenes may teach 
Lessons of peace and love, beyond all speech....Read more of this...
by Bowles, William Lisle
...one his waist, and round 
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold 
And colours dipt in Heaven; the third his feet 
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail, 
Sky-tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he stood, 
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled 
The circuit wide. Straight knew him all the bands 
Of Angels under watch; and to his state, 
And to his message high, in honour rise; 
For on some message high they guessed him bound. 
Their glittering tents he...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...n me sudden appetite 
To pluck and eat; whereat I waked, and found 
Before mine eyes all real, as the dream 
Had lively shadowed: Here had new begun 
My wandering, had not he, who was my guide 
Up hither, from among the trees appeared, 
Presence Divine. Rejoicing, but with awe, 
In adoration at his feet I fell 
Submiss: He reared me, and 'Whom thou soughtest I am,' 
Said mildly, 'Author of all this thou seest 
'Above, or round about thee, or beneath. 
'This Paradise I give th...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...ach the other viewing, 
Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds 
How darkened; innocence, that as a veil 
Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone; 
Just confidence, and native righteousness, 
And honour, from about them, naked left 
To guilty Shame; he covered, but his robe 
Uncovered more. So rose the Danite strong, 
Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap 
Of Philistean Dalilah, and waked 
Shorn of his strength. They destitute and bare 
Of all their virtue: Sil...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...sperous; and my heart grew full,
'Mid its new joy, of a new care;
For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,
As rose-o'ershadowed lilies are; 
And soon his deep and sunny hair,
In this alone less beautiful,
Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.
The blood in his translucent veins
Beat, not like animal life, but love
Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
When life had failed, and all its pains;
And sudden sleep would seize him oft
Like death, so calm,--but that a tear,
His po...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ut, back and forth,
Refusing to surround us and still the only
Thing we can see? Love once
Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,
Though mysteriously present, around somewhere.
But we know it cannot be sandwiched
Between two adjacent moments, that its windings
Lead nowhere except to further tributaries
And that these empty themselves into a vague
Sense of something that can never be known
Even though it seems likely that each of us
Knows what it is and is capable o...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John
...I sat where the sirens sit;
In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul, I strove with the powers of the Pit.
I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town; I dragged him from dissolute brawls;
But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.

God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame.
God knows what I bore that night when he swore and bade me make tracks from his claim.
I started to tell of the horrors ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars,
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
God's dreadful dawn was red.

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had ent...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
...hem its benison,
And flower-scents, that only night-time frees,
Rose up around them from the beamy ground,
Silvered and shadowed by a tranquil moon.
Within the arbour, long they lay embraced,
In such enraptured sweetness as they found
Close-partnered each to each, and thinking soon
To be enwoven, long ere night to morning faced.

43
At last Max spoke, "Dear Heart, this night is ours,
To watch it pale, together, into dawn,
Pressing our souls apart like opening flowers
Until ou...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...ir crests to shake,
          Or wave their flags abroad;
     Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake
          That shadowed o'er their road.
     Their vaward scouts no tidings bring,
          Can rouse no lurking foe,
     Nor spy a trace of living thing,
          Save when they stirred the roe;
     The host moves like a deep-sea wave,
     Where rise no rocks its pride to brave
          High-swelling, dark, and slow.
     The lake is passed, and now they ga...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter
...Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?

The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and ...Read more of this...
by Bishop, Elizabeth
...d a petted peacock down with that: 
Some to a low song oared a shallop by, 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadowed from the heat: some hid and sought 
In the orange thickets: others tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter: others lay about the lawns, 
Of the older sort, and murmured that their May 
Was passing: what was learning unto them? 
They wished to marry; they could rule a house; 
Men hated learned women: but we three 
Sat ****...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...Shade refused,
His finest workmanship abused,
The iridescent bubbles he blew
Into lovely existence, poor and few
In the shadowed eyes. Then he would curse
Himself and her! The Universe!
And more, the beauty he could not make,
And give her, for her comfort's sake!
He would beat his weary, empty hands
Upon the table, would hold up strands
Of silver and gold, and ask her why
She scorned the best which he could buy.
He would pray as to some high-niched saint,
That she would cure ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy
...sistant, nor his chief--
Only I complain. . . . this serviceable
Body that no sunlight dyes, no hand suffuses
But, dome-shadowed, withering among columns,
Wavy beneath fountains--small, far-off, shining
In the eyes of animals, these beings trapped
As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap,
Aging, but without knowledge of their age,
Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death--
Oh, bars of my own body, open, open!

The world goes by my cage and never sees me.
And there...Read more of this...
by Jarrell, Randall

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things