Famous Skim Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Dirge

...'s May amid the trees;
Her May-time note the cuckoo
Sends forth upon the breeze.

Above the rippling river
May swallows skim and dart;
November and December
Keep watch within my heart.

The spring breathes in the breezes,
The woods with wood-notes ring,
And all the budding hedgerows
Are fragrant of the spring.

In secret, silent places
The live green things upstart;
Ice-bound, ice-crown'd dwells winter
For ever in my heart.

Upon the bridge I linger,
Near where the lime-trees...Read more of this...
by Levy, Amy


An Old-time Lay

...st 
 Like your nest, 
 Skirting the stream. 
 
 Shine the sun tearfully 
 Ere the clouds clear fully, 
 Still you skim cheerfully, 
 Swallow, oh! swallow swift! often I sigh 
 For a home 
 Where you roam 
 Nearing the sky! 
 
 Guileless of pondering; 
 Swallow-eyes wandering; 
 Seeking no fonder ring 
 Than the rose-garland Love gives thee apart! 
 Grant me soon— 
 Blessed boon! 
 Home in thy heart! 


 




...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

At the British Museum

...great dome 
Vanish ...
And 
The sun hangs in the cobalt-blue sky, 
The boat drifts over the lake shallows, 
The fishes skim like umber shades through the undulating weeds, 
The oleanders drop their rosy petals on the lawns, 
And the swallows dive and swirl and whistle 
About the cleft battlements of Can Grande's castle......Read more of this...
by Aldington, Richard

Behind the Arras

...dream of One 
Who loves to haunt and yet appears to shun 
My door in the sun; 


As the white roving sea tern fleck and skim 
The morning's rim; 
Or the dark thrushes clear 
Their flutes of music leisurely and sheer, 
Then hush to hear. 


I know him when the last red brands of day 
Smoulder away, 
And when the vernal showers 
Bring back the heart to all my valley flowers 
In the soft hours. 


O hand of mine and brain of mine, be yours, 
While time endures, 
To acquiesce and...Read more of this...
by Carman, Bliss

Endymion: Book II

...fears
Were high about Pomona: here is cream,
Deepening to richness from a snowy gleam;
Sweeter than that nurse Amalthea skimm'd
For the boy Jupiter: and here, undimm'd
By any touch, a bunch of blooming plums
Ready to melt between an infant's gums:
And here is manna pick'd from Syrian trees,
In starlight, by the three Hesperides.
Feast on, and meanwhile I will let thee know
Of all these things around us." He did so,
Still brooding o'er the cadence of his lyre;
And thus: "I nee...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Gertrude of Wyoming

...l Wyoming! beneath thy skies,
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do
But feed their flocks on green declivities,
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,
From morn till evening's sweeter pastimes grew,
With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown,
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew;
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down
Would echo flageolet from some romantic town.

Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Di...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Honors - Part I

...ould have done with no man to expound
      Its meaning, yet they say,
"'We do accept it: lower than the shoals
  We skim, this diver went, nor did create,
But find it for us deeper in our souls
      Than we can penetrate.'
"You were to me the world's interpreter,
  The man that taught me Nature's unknown tongue,
And to the notes of her wild dulcimer
      First set sweet words, and sung.
"And what am I to you? A steady hand
  To hold, a steadfast heart to trust w...Read more of this...
by Ingelow, Jean

November

..., 
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. 
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee 
Shall murmur by the hedge that skim the way, 
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, 
And man delight to linger in thy ray. 
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear 
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air....Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

Ode On The Spring

...t-youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro' life's little day,
In Fortune's varying colours drest:
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chilled by Age, their airy ...Read more of this...
by Gray, Thomas

Ode to the Muse

...ht
The wit supreme, the glowing thought, 
The magic tone, that sweetly hung
About the music of his tongue. 
Then will I skim the floating air,
On a light couch of gossamer,
While with my wonder-aching eye,
I contemplate the spangled sky, 
And hear the vaulted roof repeat
The song of Inspiration sweet; 
While round the winged cherub train,
Shall iterate the aëry strain:
Swift, thro' my quiv'ring nerves shall float
The tremours of each thrilling note; 
And every eager sense con...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Part 2 of Trout Fishing in America

...ther.



A Standing Crust for Great Pies



Take a peck of flour and six pounds of butter

boiled in a gallon of water: skim it off into

the flour, and as little of the liquor as you

can. Work it up well into a paste, and then

pull it into pieces till it is cold. Then make

it up into what form you please.



And Trout Fishing in America smiled at Maria Callas as

they ate their pie crust together.



A Spoonful Pudding



Take a spoonful of flour, a spoonful of

cream or ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Peekabo I Almost See You

...nds get jocular, so you go
to the oculist,
And of all your friends he is the joculist,
So over his facetiousness let us skim,
Only noting that he has been waiting for you ever since
you said Good evening to his grandfather clock under
the impression that it was him,
And you look at his chart and it says SHRDLU QWERTYOP,
and you say Well, why SHRDNTLU QWERTYOP? and he
says one set of glasses won't do.
You need two.
One for reading Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason and
Keats's...Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Poor Marguerite

...'ll make my sea-weed bed;
"Here gather, with unwearied hands--
"The orient shells that deck the sands.
"And here will I skim o'er the billows so high,
"And laugh at the moon and the dark frowning sky.
"And the Sea-birds, that hover across the wide main,
"Shall sweep with their pinions, the white bounding plain.--
"And the shivering sail shall the fierce tempest meet,
"Like the storm, in the bosom of POOR MARGUERITE!

"The setting Sun, with golden ray,
"Shall warm my breast, a...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Bell Buoy

...y. 
 Will they give me their thanks if they clear the banks?
(Shoal! 'Ware shoal!) Not they! 

The beach-pools cake and skim, 
 The bursting spray-heads freeze, 
I gather on crown and rim 
 The grey, grained ice of the seas, 
 Where, sheathed from bitt to trees, 
The plunging colliers lie. 
 Would I barter my place for the Church's grace?
(Shoal ! 'Ware shoal !) Not I! 

Through the blur of the whirling snow, 
 Or the black of the inky sleet, 
The lanterns gather and grow, 
 ...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

The Dance

...the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
The path they leave behind them lost--wide open the path beyond...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)

...neath deep eaves,
And among whirled leaves
The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
From wall to remoter wall,
Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
And close grey wings and fall . . .

. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
Voices about me rise . . .

Voices clear and silvery, voices of ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city the city of towers

...neath deep eaves,
And among whirled leaves
The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
From wall to remoter wall,
Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
And close grey wings and fall . . .

. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
Voices about me rise . . .

Voices clear and silvery, voices of ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad

The Lady of the Lake

...spy,
     Darkening across each puny wave,
     To which the moon her silver gave.
     Fast as the cormorant could skim.
     The swimmer plied each active limb;
     Then landing in the moonlight dell,
     Loud shouted of his weal to tell.
     The Minstrel heard the far halloo,
     And joyful from the shore withdrew.




CANTO THIRD.

The Gathering.

     I.

     Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,
          Who danced our infancy upo...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Task: Book VI The Winter Walk at Noon (excerpts)

...the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He seeks not hers, for he has prov'd them vain.
He cannot skim the ground like summer birds
Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems
Her honours, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose pow'r is such, that whom she lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heav'n unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be reveal'd....


So life glides smoothly and by stealth away,
More golden than tha...Read more of this...
by Cowper, William

To Brooklyn Bridge

...s!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the...Read more of this...
by Crane, Hart

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