Famous Sinks Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

A Spell before Winter

by Howard Nemerov
 After the red leaf and the gold have gone,
Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain
Bruised and discolored, when October's flame
Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land
Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade.
There is a knowledge in the look of things,
The old hills hunch before the north wind blows.

Now I can see certain simplicities
In the darkening...Read more of this...

Dillard Sissman

by Edgar Lee Masters
 The buzzards wheel slowly
In wide circles, in a sky
Faintly hazed as from dust from the road.
And a wind sweeps through the pasture where I lie
Beating the grass into long waves.
My kite is above the wind,
Though now and then it wobbles,
Like a man shaking his shoulders;
And the tail streams out momentarily,
Then sinks to rest.
And the buzzards wheel and wheel,
Sweeping the...Read more of this...

Still Be A Child

by Victor Hugo
 ("O vous que votre âge défende") 
 
 {IX., February, 1840.} 


 In youthful spirits wild, 
 Smile, for all beams on thee; 
 Sport, sing, be still the child, 
 The flower, the honey-bee. 
 
 Bring not the future near, 
 For Joy too soon declines— 
 What is man's mission here? 
 Toil, where no sunlight...Read more of this...

Cinema Screen

by A S J Tessimond
 Light's patterns freeze:
Frost on our faces.
Light's pollen sifts
Through the lids of our eyes ...

Light sinks and rusts
In water; is broken
By glass ... rests
On deserted dust.

Light lies like torn
Paper in corners:
A rock-pool's pledge
Of the sea's return.

Light, wrenched at the edges
By wind, looks down
At itself in wrinkled
Mirrors from bridges.

Light thinly unweaves
Itself through darkness
Like foam's unknotting
Strings in waves ...

Now light is again
Accumulated
Swords...Read more of this...

The Snow-Shower

by William Cullen Bryant
STAND here by my side and turn, I pray, 
On the lake below thy gentle eyes; 
The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, 
And dark and silent the water lies; 
And out of that frozen mist the snow 5 
In wavering flakes begins to flow; 
Flake after flake 
They sink in the dark and silent lake. 

See how in...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bills Second Flight

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large, 
That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge, 
Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh; 
And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: 
For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill...Read more of this...

The Ideal And The Actual Life

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--With man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.

Seekest thou on...Read more of this...

The City That Will Not Repent

by Vachel Lindsay
 Climbing the heights of Berkeley 
Nightly I watch the West. 
There lies new San Francisco, 
Sea-maid in purple dressed, 
Wearing a dancer's girdle 
All to inflame desire: 
Scorning her days of sackcloth, 
Scorning her cleansing fire. 

See, like a burning city 
Sets now the red sun's dome. 
See, mystic firebrands sparkle 
There on each store and home. 
See how...Read more of this...

Through Agony

by Claude McKay
 I 

All night, through the eternity of night, 
Pain was my potion though I could not feel. 
Deep in my humbled heart you ground your heel, 
Till I was reft of even my inner light, 
Till reason from my mind had taken flight, 
And all my world went whirling in a reel. 
And all my swarthy strength turned cold...Read more of this...

King Canute

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un jour, Kanut mourut.") 
 
 {Bk. X. i.} 


 King Canute died.{1} Encoffined he was laid. 
 Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say, 
 And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and held 
 That Canute was a saint—Canute the Great, 
 That from his memory breathed celestial perfume, 
 And that they saw him, they...Read more of this...

Befire the Battle

by Thomas Moore
 By the hope within us springing, 
Herald of to-morrow's strife; 
By that sun, whose light is bringing 
Chains or freedom, death or life -- 
Oh! remember life can be 
No charm for him, who lives not free! 
Like the day-star in the wave, 
Sinks a hero in his grave, 
'Midst the dew-fall of a nation's tears. 

Happy is he...Read more of this...

Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days

by Ted Hughes
 She gives him his eyes, she found them
Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin
He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her
She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists
They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over...Read more of this...

Lines Written From Home

by Anne Bronte
 Though bleak these woods, and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strown,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan; 
There is a friendly roof, I know,
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire, whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past. 

And so, though still, where'er I go,
Cold stranger-glances meet my eye;
Though,...Read more of this...

Curfew

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I.

Solemnly, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
Is beginning to toll.

Cover the embers,
And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire;
Sound fades into silence,--
All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion
Reign over all!

II.

The book is completed,
And closed, like the day;
And the hand that has written...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXXVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXXVII. Quando 'l sol bagna in mur l' aurato carro. HIS NIGHTS ARE, LIKE HIS DAYS, PASSED IN TORMENT.  When in the sea sinks the sun's golden light,And on my mind and nature darkness lies,With the pale moon, faint stars and clouded skiesI pass a weary and a painful night:To...Read more of this...

The Rendezvous

by Alan Seeger
 He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour. 
Distant, across the thundering organ-swell, 
In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower, 
Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. 
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. 
He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates -- 
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he...Read more of this...

To an Ungentle Critic

by Robert Graves
 The great sun sinks behind the town 
Through a red mist of Volnay wine.... 
But what’s the use of setting down 
That glorious blaze behind the town? 
You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look 
For newer pictures in this book; 
You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine. 

A fresh wind fills the evening air 
With horrid crying of night...Read more of this...

At Night On The High Seas

by Hermann Hesse
 At night, when the sea cradles me
And the pale star gleam
Lies down on its broad waves,
Then I free myself wholly
From all activity and all the love
And stand silent and breathe purely,
Alone, alone cradled by the sea
That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.
Then I have to think of my friends
And my gaze sinks into their gazes
And I...Read more of this...

Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica)

by Jean Cocteau
 ...Preamble

A rough draft 
for an ars poetica

. . . . . . . 

Let's get our dreams unstuck

The grain of rye
free from the prattle of grass
et loin de arbres orateurs

I 

plant

it

It will sprout


But forget about 
the rustic festivities

For the explosive word 
falls harmlessly
eternal through
the compact generations 

and except for you

 nothing 
 denotates

its sweet-scented dynamite

Greetings
I discard eloquence
the empty sail
and...Read more of this...

Man And The Echo

by William Butler Yeats
 Man. In a cleft that's christened Alt
 Under broken stone I halt
 At the bottom of a pit
 That broad noon has never lit,
 And shout a secret to the stone.
 All that I have said and done,
 Now that I am old and ill,
 Turns into a question till
 I lie awake night after night
 And never get...Read more of this...

Justice

by Rudyard Kipling
 October, 1918
Across a world where all men grieve
 And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
 Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
 And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
 The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word
 That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen...Read more of this...

352. The Song of Death

by Robert Burns
 FAREWELL, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies,
 Now gay with the broad setting sun;
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties,
 Our race of existence is run!
Thou grim King of Terrors; thou Life’s gloomy foe!
 Go, frighten the coward and slave;
Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know
 No terrors hast thou to the brave!


Thou...Read more of this...

Slumber-Song

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed 
A paradise of dimness. You shall feel 
The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell 
Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold 
Summer, and midnight, and immensity 
Lulled to forgetfulness. For, where you dream, 
The stately gloom of foliage shall embower 
Your slumbering thought with tapestries of...Read more of this...

The Wilderness

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Come away! come away! there’s a frost along the marshes, 
And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water;
There’s a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland 
Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us. 
There is nothing left but ashes...Read more of this...

Mac Flecknoe

by John Dryden
 All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
This aged prince now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sinks 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