Famous Snow Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Snow poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous snow poems. These examples illustrate what a famous snow poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
William Strode
I saw fair Chloris walk alone,
Whilst feather'd rain came softly down,
And Jove descended from his tower
To court her in a silver shower.
The wanton snow flew on her breast
Like little birds unto their nest;
But overcome with whiteness there,
For grief it thaw'd into a tear;
Thence falling on her garment's hem,
To deck her, froze into a gem....Read more of this...
by
Kobayashi Issa
Pissing in the snow
outside my door--
it makes a very straight hole....Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
I
The girl in the room beneath
Before going to bed
Strums on a mandolin
The three simple tunes she knows.
How inadequate they are to tell how her heart feels!
When she has finished them several times
She thrums the strings aimlessly with her finger-nails
And smiles, and thinks happily of many things.
II
I stood for a long while before...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A little Snow was here and there
Disseminated in her Hair --
Since she and I had met and played
Decade had gathered to Decade --
But Time had added not obtained
Impregnable the Rose
For summer too indelible
Too obdurate for Snows --...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Battle cry many new ghosts Worry and grieve alone old man Disorder cloud low dusk Rapid snow dance return wind Gourd ladle discard cup without green Stove remain fire like red Many place news broken Worry sit straight book empty After the battle, many new ghosts cry, The solitary old man worries and grieves. Ragged...Read more of this...
by
William Allingham
O English mother, in the ruddy glow
Hugging your baby closer when outside
You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow
Falling again, and think what ills betide
Unshelter'd creatures,--your sad thoughts may go
Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves,
Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves
Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below.
Does this young...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Snow beneath whose chilly softness
Some that never lay
Make their first Repose this Winter
I admonish Thee
Blanket Wealthier the Neighbor
We so new bestow
Than thine acclimated Creature
Wilt Thou, Austere Snow?...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Snow flakes.
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!...Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
In the gloom of whiteness,
In the great silence of snow,
A child was sighing
And bitterly saying: "Oh,
They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,
The down is fluttering from her breast!"
And still it fell through that dusky brightness
On the child crying for the bird of the snow....Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.
It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten--
If I ever read it....Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.
Even the season is wrong for him.
In...Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
Late December: my father and I
are going to New York, to the circus.
He holds me
on his shoulders in the bitter wind:
scraps of white paper
blow over the railroad ties.
My father liked
to stand like this, to hold me
so he couldn't see me.
I remember
staring straight ahead
into the world my father saw;
I was learning
to absorb its emptiness,
the heavy snow
not falling, whirling around us....Read more of this...
by
Adelaide Crapsey
Look up…
From bleakening hills
Blows down the light, first breath
Of wintry wind…look up, and scent
The snow!...Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
No breath of wind,
No gleam of sun –
Still the white snow
Whirls softly down
Twig and bough
And blade and thorn
All in an icy
Quiet, forlorn.
Whispering, rustling,
Through the air
On still and stone,
Roof, - everywhere,
It heaps its powdery
Crystal flakes,
Of every tree
A mountain makes;
‘Til pale and faint
At shut of day
Stoops from the West
One wint’ry ray,
And, feathered in fire
Where ghosts the moon,
A robin shrills
His lonely...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
I SAW fair Chloris walk alone,
When feather'd rain came softly down,
As Jove descending from his Tower
To court her in a silver shower:
The wanton snow flew to her breast,
Like pretty birds into their nest,
But, overcome with whiteness there,
For grief it thaw'd into a tear:
Thence falling on her garments' hem,
To...Read more of this...
by
John Davidson
'Who affirms that crystals are alive?'
I affirm it, let who will deny:
Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive,
Wane and wither; I have seen them die.
Trust me, masters, crystals have their day,
Eager to attain the perfect norm,
Lit with purpose, potent to display
Facet, angle, colour, beauty, form.
Water-crystals need for flower and root
Sixty clear degrees, no less, no more;
Snow, so fickle, still in...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Ah! thou hast snared this head, though white as snow,
Which oft has vowed the wine-cup to forego;
And wrecked the mansion long resolve did build,
And rent the vesture penitence did sew!...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
There's a sunny Southern land,
And it's there that I would be
Where the big hills stand,
In the South Countrie!
When the wattles bloom again,
Then it's time for us to go
To the old Monaro country
At the melting of the snow.
To the East or to the West,
Or wherever you may be,
You will find...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
It was wet & white & swift and where I am
we don't know. It was dark and then
it isn't.
I wish the barker would come. There seems to be eat
nothing. I am usually tired.
I'm alone too.
If only the strange one with so few legs would come,
I'd say my prayers out of my mouth, as usual.
Where are his note I loved?
There...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
the children played games
getting from here
to where the truth was
without touching a flake
needless to say
the only ones who got there
were liars
but while the honest ones
shrank back from
the touch of snow
the liars
were where the truth was...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant...Read more of this...
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...
by
Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . .
It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls
Down golden-windowed walls.
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,
We do not remember the red roots whence we rose,
But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while
We shall lie down again.
The snow floats down upon...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Lux
As you descend, slowly, falling faster past
you this snow,
ghostly, some flakes bio-
luminescent (you plunge,
and this lit snow doesn't land
at your feet but keeps falling below
you): single-cell-plant chains, shreds
of zooplankton's mucus food traps,
fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts,
sand grains, pollen....And inside
these jagged falling islands
live more microlives,
which feed creatures
on the way down
and all the way down. And you,
in your sinking isolation
booth, you...Read more of this...
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