Famous Smiling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Moon of Other Days

by Rudyard Kipling
 Beneath the deep veranda's shade,
 When bats begin to fly,
I sit me down and watch -- alas! --
 Another evening die.
Blood-red behind the sere ferash
 She rises through the haze.
Sainted Diana! can that be
 The Moon of Other Days?

Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,
 Sweet Saint of Kensington!
Say, was it ever thus at Home
 The Moon of August shone,
When...Read more of this...

Security

by Robert William Service
 Young man, gather gold and gear,
they will wear you well;
You can thumb your nose at fear,
Wish the horde in hell.
With the haughty you can be
Insolent and bold:
Young man, if you would be free
Gather gear and gold.

Mellow man o middle age,
Buy a little farm;
Then let revolution rage,
you will take no ham.
Cold and hunger, hand in hand
May red ruin spread;
With your...Read more of this...

By That Lake Whose Gloomy Shore

by Thomas Moore
 By that Lake, whose gloomy shore 
Sky-lark never warbles o'er,
Where the cliff hangs high and steep, 
Young Saint Kevin stole to sleep. 
"Here, at least," he calmly said, 
"Woman ne'er shall find my bed." 
Ah! the good Saint little knew 
What that wily sex can do. 

'Twas from Kathleen's eyes he flew -- 
Eyes of most unholy blue! 
She...Read more of this...

The Dead-Beat

by Wilfred Owen
 He dropped, -- more sullenly than wearily,
Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,
And none of us could kick him to his feet;
Just blinked at my revolver, blearily;
-- Didn't appear to know a war was on,
Or see the blasted trench at which he stared.
"I'll do 'em in," he whined, "If this hand's spared,
I'll murder them, I will."

 A low...Read more of this...

Home

by Anne Bronte
 How brightly glistening in the sun
The woodland ivy plays!
While yonder beeches from their barks
Reflect his silver rays. 
That sun surveys a lovely scene
From softly smiling skies;
And wildly through unnumbered trees
The wind of winter sighs:

Now loud, it thunders o'er my head,
And now in distance dies.
But give me back my barren hills
Where colder breezes rise;

Where scarce the scattered, stunted trees
Can yield...Read more of this...

Smiling back from Coronation

by Emily Dickinson
 Smiling back from Coronation
May be Luxury --
On the Heads that started with us --
Being's Peasantry --

Recognizing in Procession
Ones We former knew --
When Ourselves were also dusty --
Centuries ago --

Had the Triumph no Conviction
Of how many be --
Stimulated -- by the Contrast --
Unto Misery --...Read more of this...

The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt)

by Alexander Pope
 He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...

Procemion

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 IN His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so'er thy...Read more of this...

First Love

by Victor Hugo
 ("Vous êtes singulier.") 
 
 {MARION DELORME, Act I., June, 1829, played 1831.} 
 
 MARION (smiling.) You're strange, and yet I love you thus. 
 
 DIDIER. You love me? 
 Beware, nor with light lips utter that word. 
 You love me!—know you what it is to love 
 With love that is the life-blood in one's...Read more of this...

Manhole Covers

by Karl Shapiro
 The beauty of manhole covers--what of that?
Like medals struck by a great savage khan,
Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable,
Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,
Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,
But notched and whelked and pocked and smashed
With the great company names
(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).
This rustproof artifact of my street,
Long after roads are melted away will lie
Sidewise in...Read more of this...

Religion XXVI

by Kahlil Gibran
 And an old priest said, "Speak to us of Religion." 

And he said: 

Have I spoken this day of aught else? 

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, 

And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?...Read more of this...

A Song Of Sixty-Five

by Robert William Service
 Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time,
I'd tune my pipes before the fire and merrily I'd...Read more of this...

The Youth And The Millstream

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [This sweet Ballad, and the one entitled The 
Maid of the Mill's Repentance, were written on the occasion of a 
visit paid by Goethe to Switzerland. The Maid of the Mill's Treachery, 
to which the latter forms the sequel, was not written till the following 
year.]

YOUTH.

SAY, sparkling streamlet, whither thou

Art 
going!
With joyous mien thy waters now

Are 
flowing.
Why seek the...Read more of this...

The Hope of the Resurrection

by Vachel Lindsay
 Though I have watched so many mourners weep
O'er the real dead, in dull earth laid asleep—
Those dead seemed but the shadows of my days
That passed and left me in the sun's bright rays.
Now though you go on smiling in the sun
Our love is slain, and love and you were one.
You are the first, you I have known so long,
Whose...Read more of this...

Black Morning Lovesong

by A S J Tessimond
 In love's dances, in love's dances
One retreats and one advances,
One grows warmer and one colder,
One more hesitant, one bolder.
One gives what the other needed
Once, or will need, now unheeded.
One is clenched, compact, ingrowing
While the other's melting, flowing.
One is smiling and concealing
While the other's asking kneeling.
One is arguing or sleeping
While the other's weeping, weeping.

And the question finds no answer
And the...Read more of this...

The Consolation

by Anne Bronte
 Though bleak these woods and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strewn,
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 roam
Cold stranger glances meet my...Read more of this...

Lines Inscribed on The Wall of a Dungeon in The Southern P of I

by Anne Bronte
 Though not a breath can enter here,
I know the wind blows fresh and free;
I know the sun is shining clear,
Though not a gleam can visit me. 
They thought while I in darkness lay,
'Twere pity that I should not know
How all the earth is smiling gay;
How fresh the vernal breezes blow.

They knew, such tidings to impart
Would pierce my weary spirit...Read more of this...

Sit Smiling

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I boasted among men that I had known you. 
They see your pictures in all works of mine. 
They come and ask me, `Who is he?' 
I know not how to answer them. I say, `Indeed, I cannot tell.' 
They blame me and they go away in scorn. 
And you sit there smiling. 

I put my tales of you...Read more of this...

The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart

by Jack Gilbert
 How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying...Read more of this...

The Book of Thel

by William Blake
 THEL'S MOTTO 

1 Does the Eagle know what is in the pit? 
2 Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
3 Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
4 Or Love in a golden bowl? 

I 

1.1 The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks, 
1.2 All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,
1.3 To...Read more of this...

The Bulbul to the garden winged his way,

by Omar Khayyam
The Bulbul to the garden winged his way,
Viewed lily cups, and roses smiling gay,
Cried in ecstatic notes, «O live your life,
You never will re-live this fleeting day.»...Read more of this...

201. Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787

by Robert Burns
 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams,
 Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;
 An inmate in the casual shed,
 On transient pity’s bounty fed,
 Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!
 Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,
 But He, who should imperial purple wear,
Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!
 His wretched refuge, dark...Read more of this...

Parabola

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 Year after year the princess lies asleep 
Until the hundred years foretold are done, 
Easily drawing her enchanted breath. 
Caught on the monstrous thorns around the keep, 
Bones of the youths who sought her, one by one 
Rot loose and rattle to the ground beneath.

But when the Destined Lover at last shall come, 
For whom alone Fortune reserves the...Read more of this...

Wheneer I See Those Smiling Eyes

by Thomas Moore
 Whene'er I see those smiling eyes, 
So full of hope, and joy, and light, 
As if no cloud could ever rise, 
To dim a heaven so purely bright -- 
I sigh to think how soon that brow 
In grief may lose its every ray, 
And that light heart, so joyous now, 
Almost forget it once was gay. 

For time...Read more of this...

Sweet Innisfallen

by Thomas Moore
 Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well, 
May calm and sunshine long be thine! 
How fair thou art let others tell -- 
To feel how fair shall long be mine. 

Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell 
In memory's dream that sunny smile, 
Which o'er thee on that evening fell, 
When first I saw thy fairy isle. 

'Twas light, indeed, too blest for...Read more of this...

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