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Famous Sky Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Dickinson, Emily
...'s Raiment
To touch—

Yet persevered toward—sure—for the Distance—
How high—
Unto the Saints' slow diligence—
The Sky—

Ungained—it may be—by a Life's low Venture—
But then—
Eternity enable the endeavoring
Again.

732

She rose to His Requirement—dropt
The Playthings of Her Life
To take the honorable Work
Of Woman, and of Wife—

If ought She missed in Her new Day,
Of Amplitude, or Awe—
Or first Prospective—Or the Gold
In using, wear away,

It lay ...Read more of this...



by Tagore, Rabindranath
...Art thou abroad on this stormy night 
on thy journey of love, my friend? 
The sky groans like one in despair. 

I have no sleep tonight. 
Ever and again I open my door and look out on 
the darkness, my friend! 

I can see nothing before me. 
I wonder where lies thy path! 

By what dim shore of the ink-black river, 
by what far edge of the frowning forest, 
through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading 
thy course to ...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...uild harpsichords in 
 their lofts, 
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned 
 with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded 
 by orange crates of theology, 
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty 
 incantations which in the yellow morning were 
 stanzas of gibberish, 
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht 
 & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable 
 kingdom, 
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for 
 an egg, 
who threw...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...d hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings
His load of faggots from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet, - the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...aim, and silver stir
Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
Of the sky-children; I will give command:
Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?"
This passion lifted him upon his feet,
And made his hands to struggle in the air,
His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat,
His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease.
He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep;
A little time, and then again he snatch'd
Utterance thus.---"But ...Read more of this...



by Angelou, Maya
...wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill 
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...hath taken, in my mortal need 
 Have mercy thou!" 
 He answered, "Shade am I, 
 That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky, 
 In the late years of Julius born, and bred 
 In Mantua, till my youthful steps were led 
 To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man; 
 And when the great Augustan age began, 
 I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how 
 Anchises' son forth-pushed a venturous prow, 
 Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou 
 To thus return to all the ill...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...along the shore. 

O to realize space! 
The plenteousness of all—that there are no bounds;
To emerge, and be of the sky—of the sun and moon, and the flying clouds, as one with
 them.


O the joy of a manly self-hood! 
Personality—to be servile to none—to defer to none—not to any tyrant, known
 or
 unknown, 
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, 
To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,
To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad c...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,
“You can just see it glancing off the roof
Making a great scroll upward toward the sky,
Long enough for recording all our names on.—
I think I’ll just call up my wife and tell her
I’m here—so far—and starting on again.
I’ll call her softly so that if she’s wise
And gone to sleep, she needn’t wake to answer.”
Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.
“Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I’m at Cole’s. I’m late.
I...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...d game;
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves, with my dog and gun by my side. 

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails—she cuts the sparkle and scud; 
My eyes settle the land—I bend at her prow, or shout joyously from the
 deck. 

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me; 
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots, and went and had a good time:
(You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.) 

I saw the marriage of the ...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...d free,
When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves,
And the sun drowned in the sea.

When Caesar's sun fell out of the sky
And whoso hearkened right
Could only hear the plunging
Of the nations in the night.

When the ends of the earth came marching in
To torch and cresset gleam.
And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
Like faces in a dream.

And men rode out of the eastern lands,
Broad river and burning plain;
Tre...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared the...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...watch grey fields and meadows parch,
And driven dust and withering snowflake fly;
Already in glimpses of the tarnish'd sky
The sun is warm and beckons to the larch,
And where the covert hazels interarch
Their tassell'd twigs, fair beds of primrose lie. 
Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid
A million buds but stay their blossoming;
And trustful birds have built their nests amid
The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing
Till one soft shower from the south shall bid,
...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
..., not from goodwill)
 They marched along shoulder to shoulder.

Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky,
 And they knew that some danger was near:
The Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail,
 And even the Butcher felt *****.

He thought of his childhood, left far far behind--
 That blissful and innocent state--
The sound so exactly recalled to his mind
 A pencil that squeaks on a slate!

"'Tis the voice of the Jubjub!" he suddenly cried.
 (This ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...The IDIOT BOY.   'Tis eight o'clock,—a clear March night,  The moon is up—the sky is blue,  The owlet in the moonlight air,  He shouts from nobody knows where;  He lengthens out his lonely shout,  Halloo! halloo! a long halloo!   —Why bustle thus about your door,  What means this bustle, Betty Foy?  Why are you in this mighty fret?...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...l 
we went, and came to a cave. down the winding cavern we groped
our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appeard
beneath us & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this
immensity; but I said, if you please we will commit ourselves
to this void, and see whether providence is here also, if you
will not I will? but he answerd. do not presume O young-man but
as we here remain behold thy lot which will soon appear when the
darkness passes away
So I rem...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...tom hurry by? 

"And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;
See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare
And redden in the dusky glare? 

"The meadows breathing amber light,
The darkness toppling from the height,
The feathery train of granite Night? 

"Shall he, grown gray among his peers,
Through the thick curtain of his tears
Catch glimpses of his earlier years, 

"And hear the sounds he knew of yore,
Old shufflings on the sanded floor,
Old knuckles tapping at the door? 

"Yet s...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
He made one of the multitude, yet so
Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky
One of the million leaves of summer's bier.--
Old age & youth, manhood & infancy,
Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
Some flying from the thing they feared & some
Seeking the object of another's fear,
And others as with steps towards the tomb
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
And others mournfully within the gloom
Of their own sha...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ian seraphs had retired on high, 
Finding their charges past all care below; 
Terrestrial business fill'd nought in the sky 
Save the recording angel's black bureau; 
Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply 
With such rapidity of vice and woe, 
That he had stripp'd off both his wings in quills, 
And yet was in arrear of human ills. 

IV 

His business so augmented of late years, 
That he was forced, against his will no doubt, 
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...r>



x x x

My voice is weak, but will does not get weaker.
It has become still better without love,
The sky is tall, the mountain wind is blowing
My thoughts are sinless to true God above.
The sleeplessness has gone to other places,
I do not on grey ashes count my sorrow,
And the skewed arrow of the clock face
Does not look to me like a deadly arrow.
How past over the heart is losing power!
Freedom is near. I will forgive all yet,
Watching,...Read more of this...

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