Famous Sight Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sight poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sight poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sight poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Omar Khayyam
All my being is attracted by the sight of beautiful,
rose-colored faces; my hand is aye ready to seize a cup
of wine. Oh, I wish to enjoy for its part what belongs
to each of my members, ere these same members are
lost in the Whole....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
I am constantly attracted by the sight of limpid wine,
my ears are ever attentive to the melodious sounds of
the flute and of the rubab [viol]. Oh, if the potter make
a pitcher of my dust, would that that pitcher might constantly
be full of wine!...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
And the long large ranks of the corn
Coloured and clothed as the morn
Stand thick in the fields and deep
For them that faint to be fed.
Let all that hunger and weep
Come hither, and who would have bread
Put in the sickles and reap.
Coloured and clothed as the morn,
The grain grows...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.
As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There are two Ripenings -- one -- of sight --
Whose forces Spheric wind
Until the Velvet product
Drop spicy to the ground --
A homelier maturing --
A process in the Bur --
That teeth of Frosts alone disclose
In far October Air....Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
A day of seeming innocence,
A glorious sun and sky,
And, just above my picket fence,
Black Bonnet passing by.
In knitted gloves and quaint old dress,
Without a spot or smirch,
Her worn face lit with peacefulness,
Old Granny goes to church.
Her hair is richly white, like milk,
That long ago was fair --
And glossy still...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Author Note: Divers Princes and Noblemen being assembled in a beautiful and fair
Palace, which was situate upon the river Rhine, they beheld a boat or
small barge make toward the shore, drawn by a Swan in a silver chain,
the one end fastened about her neck, the other to the vessel; and in it
an unknown soldier, a man of a comely...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Best Things dwell out of Sight
The Pearl -- the Just -- Our Thought.
Most shun the Public Air
Legitimate, and Rare --
The Capsule of the Wind
The Capsule of the Mind
Exhibit here, as doth a Burr --
Germ's Germ be where?...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
They held a polo meeting at a little country town,
And all the local sportsmen came to win themselves renown.
There came two strangers with a horse, and I am much afraid
They both belonged to what is called "the take-you-down brigade".
They said their horse could jump like fun, and asked an amateur
To ride him in the...Read more of this...
by
Phillis Wheatley
To cultivate in ev'ry noble mind
Habitual grace, and sentiments refin'd,
Thus while you strive to mend the human heart,
Thus while the heav'nly precepts you impart,
O may each bosom catch the sacred fire,
And youthful minds to Virtue's throne aspire!
When God's eternal ways you set in sight,
And Virtue shines in all her native light,
In vain would Vice her works in night conceal,
For...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
Unseemly are the open eyes
That watch the midnight sheep,
That look upon the secret skies
Nor close, abashed, in sleep;
That see the dawn drag in, unbidden,
To birth another day-
Oh, better far their gaze were hidden
Below the decent clay....Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
They say eyes clear with age,
As dew clarifies air
To sharpen evenings,
As if time put an edge
Round the last shape of things
To show them there;
The many-levelled trees,
The long soft tides of grass
Wrinkling away the gold
Wind-ridden waves- all these,
They say, come back to focus
As we grow old....Read more of this...
by
Christopher Marlowe
It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool dear sky;
Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound
An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground.
A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight;
Her...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot
Love gave the wound, which while I breathe will bleed;
But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got:
I saw and liked, I liked but loved not;
I lov'd, but straight did not what Love decreed.
At length to love's decrees...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Thou who givest sight to emmet's eyes,
And strength to puny limbs of feeble flies,
To Thee we will ascribe Almighty power,
And not base, unbecoming qualities....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-5
C. M.
Man frail, and God eternal.
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Out of sight? What of that?
See the Bird -- reach it!
Curve by Curve -- Sweep by Sweep --
Round the Steep Air --
Danger! What is that to Her?
Better 'tis to fail -- there --
Than debate -- here --
Blue is Blue -- the World through --
Amber -- Amber -- Dew -- Dew --
Seek -- Friend -- and see --
Heaven is shy...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent
That my humble weeping change into blossoms.
Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering,...Read more of this...
by
Henry David Thoreau
I knew a man by sight,
A blameless wight,
Who, for a year or more,
Had daily passed my door,
Yet converse none had had with him.
I met him in a lane,
Him and his cane,
About three miles from home,
Where I had chanced to roam,
And volumes stared at him, and he at me.
In a...Read more of this...
by
Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Oh, the sight entrancing,
When morning's beam is glancing
O'er files array'd
With helm and blade,
And plumes in the gay wind dancing!
When hearts are all high beating
And the trumpet's voice repeating
That song, whose breath
May lead to death,
But never to entreating.
Oh, the sight entrancing,
When morning's beam is glancing
O'er files array'd
With...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I never shall furgit that night when father hitched up Dobbin,
An' all us youngsters clambered in an' down the road went bobbin'
To school where we was kep' at work in every kind o' weather,
But where that night a spellin'-bee was callin' us together.
'Twas one o' Heaven's banner nights, the stars was all a glitter,
The moon was shinin' like the hand...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will:
Fit days, ere yet...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sight poems.