Famous Softer Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Softer poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous softer poems. These examples illustrate what a famous softer poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Carew
I do not love thee for that fair
Rich fan of thy most curious hair;
Though the wires thereof be drawn
Finer than threads of lawn,
And are softer than the leaves
On which the subtle spider weaves.
I do not love thee for those flowers
Growing on thy cheeks, love's bowers;
Though such cunning them hath spread,
None can paint them white and red:
Love's golden arrows thence...Read more of this...
by
Duncan Campbell Scott
The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
On such a night, or such a night,
Would anybody care
If such a little figure
Slipped quiet from its chair --
So quiet -- Oh how quiet,
That nobody might know
But that the little figure
Rocked softer -- to and fro --
On such a dawn, or such a dawn --
Would anybody sigh
That such a little figure
Too sound asleep did lie
For Chanticleer to wake it...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
If I could clasp my little babe
Upon my breast to-night,
I would not mind the blowing wind
That shrieketh in affright.
Oh, my lost babe! my little babe,
My babe with dreamful eyes;
Thy bed is cold; and night wind bold
Shrieks woeful lullabies.
My breast is softer than the sod;
This room, with lighter hearth,
Is better place for thy sweet face
Than...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
'Tis done---and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o'er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.
But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen---
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest---
I should...Read more of this...
by
Warsan Shire
No one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well.
your neighbours running faster than you, the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is
holding a gun bigger than his body,
you only leave home when home won't let you stay.
no...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Somno mollior unda
I
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,
Hailed of all when the world was golden,
Loved of lovers whose names beholden
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden
Days more glad than...Read more of this...
by
Walter Savage Landor
Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them,
And softer sighs, that know not what they want;
Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
as the landscape falls away
the hawthorn in its gnarly fashion
is content to stand alone
berries (the very tint of passion)
that birds are wont to feed upon
bloodstain the shortened day
a stubborn tree that speaks
of crusty age - its thorns alert
to any too-spirited invasion
who comes (it seems to say) gets hurt
not those birds with juicy beaks
insects swarm – by invitation
come may...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Faire Valentine, since once your welcome hand
Did cull mee out wrapt in a paper band,
Vouchsafe the same hand still, to shew thereby
That Fortune did your will no injury:
What though a knife I give, your beauty's charme
Will keepe the edge from doing any harme:
Wool deads the sternest blade; and will not such
A weake edge turne, meeting a softer touch?...Read more of this...
by
James Joyce
When the shy star goes forth in heaven
All maidenly, disconsolate,
Hear you amid the drowsy even
One who is singing by your gate.
His song is softer than the dew
And he is come to visit you.
O bend no more in revery
When he at eventide is calling.
Nor muse: Who may this singer be
Whose song...Read more of this...
by
Jean Toomer
Tell me, dear beauty of the dusk,
When purple ribbons bind the hill,
Do dreams your secret wish fulfill,
Do prayers, like kernels from the husk
Come from your lips? Tell me if when
The mountains loom at night, giant shades
Of softer shadow, swift like blades
Of grass seeds come to flower. Then
Tell me if the night winds bend
Them towards me, if the Shenandoah
As it...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
in the wares before you spread,
Types of all things may be read.
'NEATH the shadow
Of these bushes,
On the meadow
Where the cooling water gushes.
Phoebus gave me, when a boy,
All life's fullness to enjoy.
So, in silence, as the God
Bade them with his sov'reign nod,
Sacred Muses train'd my days
To his praise.--
With the bright and silv'ry flood
Of Parnassus stirr'd my blood,
And the seal so...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
What are we fighting for,
We fellows who go to war?
fighting for Freedom's sake!
(You give me the belly-ache.)
Freedom to starve or slave!
Freedom! aye, in the grave.
Fighting for "hearth and home,"
Who haven't an inch of loam?
Hearth? Why even a byre
Can only be ours for hire.
Dying for future peace?
Killing that killing cease?
To hell with such tripe, I say.
"Sufficient unto the day."
It isn't...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And...Read more of this...
by
William Lisle Bowles
Languid, and sad, and slow, from day to day
I journey on, yet pensive turn to view
(Where the rich landscape gleams with softer hue)
The streams and vales, and hills, that steal away.
So fares it with the children of the earth:
For when life's goodly prospect opens round,
Their spirits beat to tread that fairy ground,
Where every vale sounds to the pipe of...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
SECTION ONE
"Give the engines room,
Give the engines room."
Louder, faster
The little band-master
Whips up the fluting,
Hurries up the tooting.
He thinks that he stands,
[*] The reins in his hands,
In the fire-chief's place
In the night alarm chase.
The cymbals whang,
The kettledrums bang: —
"Clear the street,
Clear the street,
Clear the street — Boom, boom.
In the evening gloom,
In the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Blest be the Man! his Memory at least,
Who found the Art, thus to unfold his Breast,
And taught succeeding Times an easy way
Their secret Thoughts by Letters to convey;
To baffle Absence, and secure Delight,
Which, till that Time, was limited to Sight.
The parting Farewel spoke, the last Adieu,
The less'ning Distance past, then loss of...Read more of this...
by
Emma Lazarus
Prelude
Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea:
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky.
Shall we not call im Prospero who held
In his enchanted hands the fateful key
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery,
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled,
With him...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet snd slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.
I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as white cow's milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.
We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall...Read more of this...
by
Ben Jonson
VIII. ? SONG. ? TO SICKNESS. To thy altars, by their nights Spent in surfeits ; and their days, And nights too, in worser ways ? Take heed, Sickness, what you do, I shall fear you'll surfeit too. Live not we, as all thy stalls,And this age will build no more. 'Pray thee, feed contented then, Sickness, only on us men ; Or if it...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
An idle rhyme of the summer time,
Sweet, and solemn, and tender;
Fair with the haze of the moon's pale rays,
Bright with the sunset's splendour.
Summer and beauty over the lands -
Careless hours of pleasure;
A meeting of eyes and a touching of hands -
A change in the floating measure.
A deeper hue in the skies of blue,
Winds from...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Where I have lost, I softer tread --
I sow sweet flower from garden bed --
I pause above that vanished head
And mourn.
Whom I have lost, I pious guard
From accent harsh, or ruthless word --
Feeling as if their pillow heard,
Though stone!
When I have lost, you'll know by this --
A Bonnet black -- A dusk surplice --
A little tremor in my voice...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Farewell, lov'd Youth! since 'twas the Will of Heaven
So soon to take, what had so late been giv'n;
And thus our Expectations to destroy,
Raising a Grief, where we had form'd a Joy;
Who once believ'd, it was the Fates Design
In Him to double an Illustrious Line,
And in a second Channel spread that Race
Where ev'ry...Read more of this...
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