Famous Shine Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton

by James Thomson
 Shall the great soul of Newton quit this earth, 
To mingle with his stars; and every muse,
Astonish'd into silence, shun the weight
Of honours due to his illustrious name?
But what can man?--Even now the sons of light,
In strains high-warbled to seraphic lyre,
Hail his arrival on the coast of bliss.
Yet am not I deterr'd, though high the theme,
And sung to harps...Read more of this...

Two Sonnets

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

Just as I wonder at the twofold screen 
Of twisted innocence that you would plait 
For eyes that uncourageously await 
The coming of a kingdom that has been, 
So do I wonder what God’s love can mean
To you that all so strangely estimate 
The purpose and the consequent estate 
Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen. 

No, I...Read more of this...

Hamatreya

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, 
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil 
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood. 
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm, 
Saying, "'Tis mine, my children's and my name's. 
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees! 
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill! 
I fancy...Read more of this...

To the Muse of Poetry

by Mary Darby Robinson
 EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see 
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing, 
Around its harmless venom fling, 
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE! 
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing, 
To sweep the dark revengeful string; 
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray, 
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay, 
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine 
About thy heart, each bliss...Read more of this...

The Oceans Song

by Victor Hugo
 We walked amongst the ruins famed in story 
Of Rozel-Tower, 
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory 
And heave in power. 

O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder, 
Whilst waves marked time. 
"Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder, 
"And shine sublime! 

"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles, 
To despots sold. 
Souls...Read more of this...

Shine Perishing Republic

by Robinson Jeffers
 While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening 
 to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
 mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots 
 to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and deca-
...Read more of this...

The Peri

by Victor Hugo
 Beautiful spirit, come with me 
 Over the blue enchanted sea: 
 Morn and evening thou canst play 
 In my garden, where the breeze 
 Warbles through the fruity trees; 
 No shadow falls upon the day: 
 There thy mother's arms await 
 Her cherished infant at the gate. 
 Of Peris I the loveliest far— 
...Read more of this...

Etesia Absent

by Henry Vaughan
 Love, the world's life! What a sad death
Thy absence is to lose our breath
At once and die, is but to live
Enlarged, without the scant reprieve
Of pulse and air: whose dull returns
And narrow circles the soul mourns.
But to be dead alive, and still
To wish, but never have our will:
To be possessed, and yet to miss;
To wed a true but absent...Read more of this...

The Fourth EPIGRAM. (On GALLA)

by Anne Killigrew
 NOw liquid Streams by the fierce Gold do grow
As solid as the Rocks from whence they flow; 
Now Tibers Banks with Ice united meet, 
And it's firm Stream may well be term'd its Street; 
Now Vot'ries 'fore the Shrines like Statues show, 
And scarce the Men from Images we know; 
Now Winters Palsey seizes ev'ry Age, 
And none's so...Read more of this...

Dark Prophecy: I Sing Of Shine

by Etheridge Knight
 And, yeah brothers
while white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown
(who was hustling the titanic
when it went down)
I sing to thee of Shine
the stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship
and let the white folks drown
with screams on their lips
(jumped his black ass into the dark sea, Shine did,
broke free from the straining steel).
Yeah, I sing to...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIII

by William Shakespeare
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant...Read more of this...

A Vision of Beauty

by George William Russell
 WHERE we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the heaven of heavens—through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean...Read more of this...

Should Lanterns Shine

by Dylan Thomas
 Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, an any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast.

I have been told to reason by the...Read more of this...

America

by Robert Creeley
 America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.

Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world

you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.

People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.

Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back

what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you...Read more of this...

The Princes Day

by Thomas Moore
 Though dark are our sorrows, today we'll forget them, 
And smile through our tears, like a sunbeam in showers: 
There never were hearts, if our rulers would let them, 
More form'd to be grateful and blest than ours. 
But just when the chain, 
Has ceased to pain, 
And hope has enwreathed it round with flowers, 
There comes a new...Read more of this...

Charity

by Victor Hugo
 ("Je suis la Charité.") 
 
 {February, 1837.} 


 "Lo! I am Charity," she cries, 
 "Who waketh up before the day; 
 While yet asleep all nature lies, 
 God bids me rise and go my way." 
 
 How fair her glorious features shine, 
 Whereon the hand of God hath set 
 An angel's attributes divine,...Read more of this...

The Lake

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
A limpid lake, a diamond gem,
  The moonbeams kissed with light;
And all the stars that heaven knew
  Were mirrored in the night.
How fair the world, how fair the night,
  When lake and river run
Like jeweled streams of fairy land
  Beneath a silver sun.
The lake grew proud and claimed each star
  That lay upon her breast;
"Ah!...Read more of this...

The Wood

by Charlotte Bronte
 But two miles more, and then we rest ! 
Well, there is still an hour of day, 
And long the brightness of the West 
Will light us on our devious way; 
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ 
So total is the solitude, 
We safely may delay. 

These massive roots afford a seat, 
Which seems for weary travellers made....Read more of this...

Dust

by Rupert Brooke
 When the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath --
When we are dust, when we are dust! --

Not dead, not undesirous yet,
Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We'll ride the...Read more of this...

To Longfellow

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
The crown of stars is broken in parts,
Its jewels brighter than the day,
Have one by one been stolen away
To shine in other homes and hearts.
—[Hanging of the Crane.]
Each poem is a star that shines
  Within your crown of light;
Each jeweled thought—a fadeless gem
  That dims the stars of night.
A flower here and there, so sweet,
  Its fragrance...Read more of this...

Love Much

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.
Cast sweets into its cup whene’er you can.
No heart so hard, but love at last may win it.
Love is the great primæval cause of man.
All hate is foreign to the first great plan.

Love much. Your heart will be led out to slaughter, 
On altars built of envy and deciet.
Love on, love...Read more of this...

My Sad Captains

by Thom Gunn
 One by one they appear in
the darkness: a few friends, and
a few with historical 
names. How late they start to shine!
but before they fade they stand
perfectly embodied, all

the past lapping them like a 
cloak of chaos. They were men
who, I thought, lived only to
renew the wasteful force they
spent with each hot convulsion.
They remind me, distant now.

True, they are not...Read more of this...

Divina Commedia

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Oft have I seen at some cathedral door 
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, 
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet 
.
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor 
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; 
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat; 
.
The loud vociferations of the street 
.
Become an undistinguishable roar. 
.
So, as I...Read more of this...

Autumn

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging...Read more of this...

Rain Or Shine

by Charles Bukowski
 the vultures at the zoo
(all three of the)
sit very quietly in their
caged tree
and below
on the ground
are chunks of rotten meat.
the vultures are over-full.
our taxes have fed them
well.

we move on to the next
cage.
a man is in there
sitting on the ground
eating
his own ****.
i recognize him as
our former mailman.
his favorite expression 
had been:
"have a beautiful day."

that day i did....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Shine 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