Famous Songless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Agatha

by Alfred Austin
 SHE wanders in the April woods, 
That glisten with the fallen shower; 
She leans her face against the buds, 
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower. 
She feels the ferment of the hour: 
She broodeth when the ringdove broods; 
The sun and flying clouds have power 
Upon her cheek and changing moods. 
She cannot think she is alone,...Read more of this...

Scotlands Winter

by Edwin Muir
 Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.
The water at the mill
Sounds more hoarse and dull.
The miller's daughter walking by
With frozen fingers soldered to her basket
Seems to be knocking 
Upon a hundred leagues of floor
With her light heels, and mocking
Percy and...Read more of this...

Song of the Future

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Tis strange that in a land so strong 
So strong and bold in mighty youth, 
We have no poet's voice of truth 
To sing for us a wondrous song. 
Our chiefest singer yet has sung 
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain, 
All carelessly and sadly flung 
To that dull world he thought so vain. 

"I care for nothing,...Read more of this...

Morning in the Burned House

by Margaret Atwood
 In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against 
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside...Read more of this...

The Last Oracle

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula. 
ouketi PHoibos exei kaluban, ou mantida daphnen, 
ou pagan laleousan . apesbeto kai lalon udor. 

Years have risen and fallen in darkness or in twilight, 
Ages waxed and waned that knew not thee nor thine, 
While the world sought light by night and sought not thy light, 
Since the sad last pilgrim...Read more of this...

A Dedication

by Adam Lindsay Gordon
 They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less 
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds. 
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed...Read more of this...

Before Day

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Come in this hour to set my spirit free 
When earth is no more mine though night goes out, 
And stretching forth these arms I cannot be 
Lord of winged sunrise and dim Arcady: 
When fieldward boys far off with clack and shout
From orchards scare the birds in sudden rout, 
Come, ere my heart grows cold and full of...Read more of this...

In The Willow Shade

by Christina Rossetti
 I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.

Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope
The sun's wan looking-glass.

Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or...Read more of this...

Song in the Songless

by George Meredith
 They have no song, the sedges dry,
And still they sing.
It is within my breast they sing,
As I pass by.
Within my breast they touch a string,
They wake a sigh.
There is but sound of sedges dry;
In me they sing....Read more of this...

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