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Famous Shining Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Shakespeare, William
... At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justic...Read more of this...



by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...of Evangeline followed.
Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the darkness,
Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the maiden.
Silent she passed the hall, and entered the door of her chamber.
Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, and its clothes-press
Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully folded
Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline woven.
This was the precious dower she would bring to her husban...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...d only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. ...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...sed forth from Heaven, lest else its beauties end 
 The pure perfection of their stainless claim, 
 Out-herded from the shining gate they came, 
 Where the deep hells refused them, lest the lost 
 Boast something baser than themselves." 

 And I, 
 "Master, what grievance hath their failure cost, 
 That through the lamentable dark they cry?" 

 He answered, "Briefly at a thing not worth 
 We glance, and pass forgetful. Hope in death 
 They have not. Memory of them...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...thick and fast 
Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide, 
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright, 
Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed, 
Out of thy head I sprung. Amazement seized 
All th' host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid 
At first, and called me Sin, and for a sign 
Portentous held me; but, familiar grown, 
I pleased, and with attractive graces won 
The most averse--thee chiefly, who, full oft 
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing, 
Be...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...br> 
From hence no cloud, or, to obstruct his sight, 
Star interposed, however small he sees, 
Not unconformed to other shining globes, 
Earth, and the garden of God, with cedars crowned 
Above all hills. As when by night the glass 
Of Galileo, less assured, observes 
Imagined lands and regions in the moon: 
Or pilot, from amidst the Cyclades 
Delos or Samos first appearing, kens 
A cloudy spot. Down thither prone in flight 
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sk...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...g bird's beak and brow,
His skin was brown like buried gold,
And of certain of his sires was told
That they came in the shining ship of old,
With Caesar in the prow.

His fruit trees stood like soldiers
Drilled in a straight line,
His strange, stiff olives did not fail,
And all the kings of the earth drank ale,
But he drank wine.

Wide over wasted British plains
Stood never an arch or dome,
Only the trees to toss and reel,
The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;
B...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...each right hand 
Is ready with a sheathless brand. 
They part, pursue, return, and wheel 
With searching flambeau, shining steel; 
And last of all, his sabre waving, 
Stern Giaffir in his fury raving: 
And now almost they touch the cave — 
Oh! must that grot be Selim's grave? 

XXIII. 

Dauntless he stood — "'Tis come — soon past — 
One kiss, Zuleika — 'tis my last: 
But yet my band not far from shore 
May hear this signal, see the flash; 
Yet now too few — the attem...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of hi...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...day, 
Scaped through a cavern from a bandit hold, 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Crying on help: for all her shining hair 
Was smeared with earth, and either milky arm 
Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
In tempest: so the King arose and went 
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 
That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit 
Some little of this marvel he too saw, 
Returning o'er the plain tha...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...that, near the waterfall,  Which thunders down with headlong force,  Beneath the moon, yet shining fair,  As careless as if nothing were,  Sits upright on a feeding horse?   Unto his horse, that's feeding free,  He seems, I think, the rein to give;  Of moon or stars he takes no heed;  Of such we in romances read,  —Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...nd of the greves*, *groves
Were it of woodbine, or of hawthorn leaves,
And loud he sang against the sun so sheen*. *shining bright
"O May, with all thy flowers and thy green,
Right welcome be thou, faire freshe May,
I hope that I some green here getten may."
And from his courser*, with a lusty heart, *horse
Into the grove full hastily he start,
And in a path he roamed up and down,
There as by aventure this Palamon
Was in a bush, that no man might him see,
For sore afe...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...eld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke 
of a burning city; beneath us at an immense distance was the sun,
black but shining[;] round it were fiery tracks on which revolv'd
vast spiders, crawling after their prey; which flew or rather
swum in the infinite deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals
sprung from corruption. & the air was full of them, & seemd
composed of them; these are Devils. and are called Powers of the
air, I now asked my companion which was my ...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...locks,
Lodg'd in the Hollow of two neighbouring Hills,
The billowy Tempest whelms; till, upwards urg'd,
The Valley to a shining Mountain swells,
That curls its Wreaths amid the freezing Sky.

NOW, all amid the Rigours of the Year,
In the wild Depth of Winter, while without
The ceaseless Winds blow keen, be my Retreat
A rural, shelter'd, solitary, Scene;
Where ruddy Fire, and beaming Tapers join
To chase the chearless Gloom: there let me sit,
And hold high Converse with th...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
..., and quite
A heap of emeralds, and steel.
Here was a gem, there was a wheel.
And glasses lay like limpid lakes
Shining and still, and there were flakes
Of silver, and shavings of pearl,
And little wires all awhirl
With the light of the candle. He took the watch
And wound its hands about to match
The time, then glanced up to take the hour
From the hanging clock.

Good, Merciful Power!
How came that shadow on the wall,
No woman was in the room! His tall
Chiffon...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...I 
I have loved England, dearly and deeply, 
Since that first morning, shining and pure, 
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply 
Out of the sea that once made her secure. 
I had no thought then of husband or lover, 
I was a traveller, the guest of a week; 
Yet when they pointed 'the white cliffs of Dover', 
Startled I found there were tears on my cheek. 
I have loved England, and still as a stranger, 
Here is m...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...es;* *relations
Thus sayest thou, old barrel full of lies.
And yet also of our prentice Jenkin,
For his crisp hair, shining as gold so fine,
And for he squireth me both up and down,
Yet hast thou caught a false suspicioun:
I will him not, though thou wert dead to-morrow.
But tell me this, why hidest thou, *with sorrow,* *sorrow on thee!*
The keyes of thy chest away from me?
It is my good* as well as thine, pardie. *property
What, think'st to make an idiot of our d...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ce--each a satellite.

"This may not be," the Wizard Maid replied.
"The fountains where the Naiades bedew
Their shining hair at length are drained and dried;
The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew
Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;
The boundless ocean like a drop of dew
Will be consumed; the stubborn centre must
Be scattered like a cloud of summer dust.

"And ye, with them, will perish one by one.
If I must sigh to think that this shall be,
If...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...om these black keys, and these black keys proceed
From my alphabetical fingers, ordering parts,

Parts, bits, cogs, the shining multiples.
I am dying as I sit. I lose a dimension.
Trains roar in my ears, departures, departures!
The silver track of time empties into the distance,
The white sky empties of its promise, like a cup.
These are my feet, these mechanical echoes.
Tap, tap, tap, steel pegs. I am found wanting.

This is a disease I carry home...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...of delight
As on her shoulders played alone
The rays of miserable light.

And how could I forgive her yet
Your shining praise by love deluded
Look, she is happily in sorrow,
And in such elegance denuded.



x x x

In the sleep to me is given
Our last eden of stars up high
City of clean water towers,
Golden Bakchisarai

There behind a colored fencing
By the pensive water stalled
Village of the Tsar's gardens
With rejoicing we recalled.

And...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs