Famous Shedding Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Hermit of Mont-Blanc

by Mary Darby Robinson
 High, on the Solitude of Alpine Hills,
O'er-topping the grand imag'ry of Nature,
Where one eternal winter seem'd to reign;
An HERMIT'S threshold, carpetted with moss,
Diversified the Scene. Above the flakes
Of silv'ry snow, full many a modest flow'r
Peep'd through its icy veil, and blushing ope'd
Its variegated hues; The ORCHIS sweet,
The bloomy CISTUS, and the fragrant branch
Of glossy MYRTLE. In his rushy cell,
The...Read more of this...

The Burial of the Reverend Gilfillan

by William Topaz McGonagall
 On the Gilfillan burial day,
In the Hill o' Balgay,
It was a most solemn sight to see,
Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee,
All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day,
That death had suddenly taken away,
And was going to be buried in the Hill o' Balgay. 

There were about three thousand people in the procession alone,
And many were...Read more of this...

The Boston Athenaeum

by Amy Lowell
 Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 07: Porcelain

by Conrad Aiken
 You see that porcelain ranged there in the window—
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you...Read more of this...

Sonnet IX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET IX. Quando 'l pianeta che distingue l' ore. WITH A PRESENT OF FRUIT IN SPRING.  When the great planet which directs the hoursTo dwell with Taurus from the North is borne,Such virtue rays from each enkindled horn,Rare beauty instantly all nature dowers;Nor this alone, which meets our sight, that flowersRead more of this...

A Marriage

by R S Thomas
 We met
 under a shower
of bird-notes.
 Fifty years passed,
love's moment
 in a world in
servitude to time.
 She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
 closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
 `Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
 partner for
the last dance, And she,
 who in life
had done everything
 with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
 for the shedding
of one sigh no
...Read more of this...

The Wizard in the Street

by Vachel Lindsay
 [Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]


Who now will praise the Wizard in the street 
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet — 
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, 
Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, 
This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, 
With melancholy bells upon his hood? 

The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak, 
And well may...Read more of this...

Muse

by Meena Alexander
I was young when you came to me. 
Each thing rings its turn, 
you sang in my ear, a slip of a thing 
dressed like a convent girl—
white socks, shoes, 
dark blue pinafore, white blouse.

A pencil box in hand: girl, book, tree—
those were the words you gave me. 
Girl was penne, hair drawn back, 
gleaming on the scalp, 
the self...Read more of this...

The Touch

by Anne Sexton
 For months my hand was sealed off
in a tin box. Nothing was there but the subway railings.
Perhaps it is bruised, I thought,
and that is why they have locked it up.
You could tell time by this, I thought,
like a clock, by its five knuckles
and the thin underground veins.
It lay there like an unconscious woman
fed by tubes she knew not of.

The...Read more of this...

October

by James Schuyler
 Books litter the bed,
leaves the lawn. It
lightly rains. Fall has
come: unpatterned, in
the shedding leaves.

The maples ripen. Apples
come home crisp in bags.
This pear tastes good.
It rains lightly on the
random leaf patterns.

The nimbus is spread
above our island. Rain
lightly patters on un-
shed leaves. The books
of fall litter the bed....Read more of this...

From The Long Sad Party

by Mark Strand
 Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

Someone was saying
how the wind dies down but comes back,
how shells are the coffins of wind
but the weather continues.

It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon shedding its
 white
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead
but more...Read more of this...

The Song of the Smoke

by W. E. B. Du Bois
I am the Smoke King 
I am black! 
I am swinging in the sky, 
I am wringing worlds awry; 
I am the thought of the throbbing mills, 
I am the soul of the soul-toil kills, 
Wraith of the ripple of trading rills; 
Up I’m curling from the sod, 
I am whirling home to God; 
I am the Smoke King 
I...Read more of this...

Edmunds Wedding

by Mary Darby Robinson
 By the side of the brook, where the willow is waving
Why sits the wan Youth, in his wedding-suit gay!
Now sighing so deeply, now frantickly raving
Beneath the pale light of the moon's sickly ray.
Now he starts, all aghast, and with horror's wild gesture,
Cries, "AGNES is coming, I know her white vesture!
"See! see! how she beckons me on to the willow,
"Where,...Read more of this...

Benediction

by Charles Baudelaire
 NOW the rooftree of the midnight spreading,
 Buds in citron, green, and blue:
From afar its mystic odours shedding,
 Child, on you.


Now the buried stars beneath the mountain
 And the vales their life renew,
Jetting rainbow blooms from tiny fountains,
 Child, for you.


In the diamond air the sun-star glowing,
 Up its feathered radiance threw;
All the jewel glory there was flowing,
 Child,...Read more of this...

Sonnet VIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VIII. A piè de' colli ove la bella vesta. HE FEIGNS AN ADDRESS FROM SOME BIRDS WHICH HE HAD PRESENTED.  Beneath the verdant hills—where the fair vestOf earthly mould first took the Lady dear,Who him that sends us, feather'd captives, hereAwakens often from his tearful rest—Lived we in freedom and...Read more of this...

Night-Piece

by Siegfried Sassoon
YE hooded witches baleful shapes that moan 
Quench your fantastic lanterns and be still;
For now the moon through heaven sails alone 
Shedding her peaceful rays from hill to hill.
The faun from out his dim and secret place 5
Draws nigh the darkling pool and from his dream
Half-wakens seeing there his sylvan face
Reflected and the wistful eyes that gleam.

To his cold lips...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

by Robert William Service
 I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die--
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by...Read more of this...

A Poets Voice XV

by Kahlil Gibran
 Part One


The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. 

My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. 

Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct...Read more of this...

The Gardener XIII: I Asked Nothing

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I asked nothing, only stood at the 
edge of the wood behind the tree.
Languor was still upon the eyes
of the dawn, and the dew in the air.
The lazy smell of the damp grass
hung in the thin mist above the earth.
Under the banyan tree you were
milking the cow with your hands,
tender and fresh as butter.
And I was standing still.
I did...Read more of this...

The Cherry Trees

by Edward Thomas
 The cherry trees bend over and are shedding,
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed....Read more of this...

Soldier Boy

by Robert William Service
 My soldier boy has crossed the sea
 To fight the foeman;
But he'll come back to make of me
 And honest woman.
So I am singing all day long,
 Despite blood-shedding;
For though I know he's done me wrong,
 We'll end by wedding.

My soldier boy is home again,
 So bold and scathless;
But oh, my heart is numb with pain
 Because he's faithless.
He's...Read more of this...

Leaning Into The Afternoons

by Pablo Neruda
 Leaning into the afternoons,
I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.
There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames;
Its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness my distant female;
>From your regard sometimes, the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning...Read more of this...

The Sunderland Calamity

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883,
That about 200 children were launch'd into eternity
While witnessing an entertainment in Victoria Hall,
While they, poor little innocents, to God for help did call. 

The entertainment consisted of conjuring, and the ghost illusion play,
Also talking waxworks, and living marionettes, and given by Mr. Fay;
And on this occasion, presents...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 Scapegoat

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 We have all of us read how the Israelites fled 
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em, 
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup" 
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em. 
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had" 
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad. 
You...Read more of this...

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