Famous Skys Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Ballad Of One-Eyed Mike

by Robert William Service
 This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky;
As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of "hooch" was dry.

A man once aimed that my life be shamed, and wrought me a deathly wrong;
I vowed...Read more of this...

Cupid And Folly

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 CUPID, ere depriv'd of Sight, 
Young and apt for all Delight, 
Met with Folly on the way, 
As Idle and as fond of Play. 
In gay Sports the time they pass; 
Now run, now wrestle on the Grass; 
Their painted Wings then nimbly ply, 
And ev'ry way for Mast'ry try: 
'Till a Contest do's arise, 
Who has won th'...Read more of this...

The Schoolmaster

by D. H. Lawrence
I

=A Snowy Day in School=

All the slow school hours, round the irregular hum of the class,
Have pressed immeasurable spaces of hoarse silence
Muffling my mind, as snow muffles the sounds that pass
Down the soiled street. We have pattered the lessons ceaselessly--

But the faces of the boys, in the brooding, yellow light
Have shone for me like a crowded constellation of stars,
Like full-blown...Read more of this...

Air Of Diabellis

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 CALL it to mind, O my love.
Dear were your eyes as the day,
Bright as the day and the sky;
Like the stream of gold and the sky above,
Dear were your eyes in the grey.
We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love!
Now along the silent river, azure
Through the sky's inverted image,
Softly swam the boat that bore our love,
Swiftly...Read more of this...

Drunk As Drunk

by Pablo Neruda
 Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months...Read more of this...

To Brooklyn Bridge

by Hart Crane
 How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes...Read more of this...

The House of Christmas

by G K Chesterton
 There fared a mother driven forth 
Out of an inn to roam; 
In the place where she was homeless 
All men are at home. 
The crazy stable close at hand, 
With shaking timber and shifting sand, 
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand 
Than the square stones of Rome. 

For men are homesick in their homes, 
And strangers...Read more of this...

Landscape of a Vomiting Multitude

by Federico García Lorca
 The fat lady came out first,
tearing out roots and moistening drumskins.
The fat lady
who turns dying octopuses inside out.
The fat lady, the moon's antagonist,
was running through the streets and deserted buildings
and leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners
and stirring up the furies of the last centuries' feasts
and summoning the demon of bread through the sky's clean-swept hills
and filtering a...Read more of this...

convolvulus-age

by Rg Gregory
 up the ladder and round the bend
age spirals like a convolvulus
its bells break into the light
catching breath with their beauty
but how in the sightless earth
its roots work to a wise agenda

for all the seasonal pleasures
sun and open air afford us
we grow below more tightly
(knowing squeezed into essence)
till each pinch of inner space
networks our darkest truths

the convolvulus keeps climbing
probing wise...Read more of this...

When the Children Come Home

by Henry Lawson
 On a lonely selection far out in the West 
An old woman works all the day without rest, 
And she croons, as she toils 'neath the sky's glassy dome, 
`Sure I'll keep the ould place till the childer come home.' 

She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs, 
She drives the old horse and she milks all...Read more of this...

Song IX: Ho Ye Who Seek Saving

by William Morris
 Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!' 

He leadeth, He hearkeneth,...Read more of this...

Mementos

by Charlotte Bronte
 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These...Read more of this...

The Way Of The Wind

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 The wind's way in the deep sky's hollow
None may measure, as none can say
How the heart in her shows the swallow
The wind's way.

Hope nor fear can avail to stay
Waves that whiten on wrecks that wallow,
Times and seasons that wane and slay.

Life and love, till the strong night swallow
Thought and hope and the red last ray,
Swim the waters of years...Read more of this...

The Garden of Janus

by Aleister Crowley
 I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with...Read more of this...

Spring Offensive

by Wilfred Owen
 Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept. But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.

Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and...Read more of this...

The Pigeon Shooting

by Robert William Service
 They say that Monte Carlo is
A sunny place for shady people;
But I'm not in the gambling biz,
And sober as a parish steeple.
so though this paradisal spot
The devil's playground of the rich is,
I love it and I love it not,
As men may sometimes fall for bitches.

I lazed beneath the sky's blue bliss,
The sea swooned with a sequin glimmer;
The breeze was...Read more of this...

An Exiles Farewell

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 The ocean heaves around us still
With long and measured swell,
The autumn gales our canvas fill,
Our ship rides smooth and well.
The broad Atlantic's bed of foam
Still breaks against our prow;
I shed no tears at quitting home,
Nor will I shed them now!

Against the bulwarks on the poop
I lean, and watch the sun
Behind the red horizon stoop —
His race is nearly run.
Those...Read more of this...

Three HaPence a Foot

by Marriott Edgar
 I'll tell you an old-fashioned story 
That Grandfather used to relate, 
Of a joiner and building contractor; 
'Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite.

In a shop on the banks of the Irwell, 
Old Sam used to follow 'is trade, 
In a place you'll have 'eard of, called Bury; 
You know, where black puddings is made.

One day, Sam were filling a...Read more of this...

The Parting

by Robert William Service
 Sky's a-waxin' grey,
Got to be a-goin';
Gittin' on my way,
Where? I ain't a-knowin'.
Fellers, no more jokes,
Fun an' frisky greetin'--
So long, all you folks,
Been nice our meetin'.

Sky's a-growin' dark,
Have to be a-startin'.
Feeble is the spark,
Pitiful the partin'.
Family an' all,
Thanks for joy I owe you;
Gotta take my call;
Been sweet to know you.

Sky's a-mighty black,
Close my heart's to breakin'.
Lonesome is the track
I must...Read more of this...

Foreign Lands

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Up into the cherry tree 
Who should climb but little me? 
I held the trunk with both my hands 
And looked abroad in foreign lands. 

I saw the next door garden lie, 
Adorned with flowers, before my eye, 
And many pleasant places more 
That I had never seen before. 

I saw the dimpling river pass 
And be the sky's...Read more of this...

Sometimes The Skys Too Bright

by Dylan Thomas
 Sometimes the sky's too bright,
Or has too many clouds or birds,
And far away's too sharp a sun
To nourish thinking of him.
Why is my hand too blunt
To cut in front of me
My horrid images for me,
Of over-fruitful smiles,
The weightless touching of the lip
I wish to know
I cannot lift, but can,
The creature with the angel's face
Who tells me hurt,
And sees my...Read more of this...

South Country

by Kenneth Slessor
 After the whey-faced anonymity 
Of river-gums and scribbly-gums and bush, 
After the rubbing and the hit of brush, 
You come to the South Country 
As if the argument of trees were done, 
The doubts and quarrelling, the plots and pains, 
All ended by these clear and gliding planes 
Like an abrupt solution. 

And over the flat earth of empty...Read more of this...

The Lay of a Golden Goose

by Louisa May Alcott
 Long ago in a poultry yard 
One dull November morn, 
Beneath a motherly soft wing 
A little goose was born. 

Who straightway peeped out of the shell 
To view the world beyond, 
Longing at once to sally forth 
And paddle in the pond. 

"Oh! be not rash," her father said, 
A mild Socratic bird; 
Her mother begged her not...Read more of this...

the plane and the blackbird

by Rg Gregory
 a cold bright sun
two days to christmas
a first-quarter moon
at a good vantage-point

a small white coffin
driven slowly uphill
from the cemetery gate
to the minimal grave

fifty people attending
unexpected collection
of nettle-stung hearts 
at a barely-lived dying

a shuffling past yews
thoughts finding rhythm
a lightness that bred
from a silent aceptance

a red-arrowed plane
in single formation
scissored the sky's blue
above the procession

sagittarian arrow
a sizzling of fire
an unconscious dipping
of wings...Read more of this...

Night in the Pavilion

by Du Fu
 Year dusk yin yang hurry short light Heaven end frost snow clear cold night Fifth watch drum horn sound mournful mighty Third gorge star river shadow move tremor Country cry thousand homes hear fighting Foreign songs several places rise fisher woodcutter Sleeping dragon leaping horse end yellow earth Human affairs hear letter in vain melancholy At...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Skys 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