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Famous Sower Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...here the Devil's three trumps are 
The woman, the card, and the horse. 
Shall the blind lead the blind -- shall the sower 
Of wind read the storm as of yore? 
Though they get to their goal somewhat slower, 
They march where we hurried before. 

For the world never learns -- just as we did 
They gallantly go to their fate, 
Unheeded all warnings, unheeded 
The maxims of elders sedate. 
As the husbandman, patiently toiling, 
Draws a harvest each year from the soil, ...Read more of this...



by Whitman, Walt
...AS I watch’d the ploughman ploughing, 
Or the sower sowing in the fields—or the harvester harvesting, 
I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies: 
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...n'd in night
The virgins of youth and morning bear.

Does spring hide its joy
When buds and blossoms grow?
Does the sower?
Sow by night?
Or the ploughman in darkness plough?

Break this heavy chain.
That does freeze my bones around
Selfish! vain!
Eternal bane!
That free Love with bondage bound....Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...ough-cloven clod 
 And the ploughshare drawn thorough, 
 The germ and the sod, 
The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God. 

 Hast thou known how I fashion'd thee, 
 Child, underground? 
 Fire that impassion'd thee, 
 Iron that bound, 
Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or 
found? 

 Canst thou say in thine heart 
 Thou hast seen with thine eyes 
 With what cunning of art 
 Thou wast wrought in what wise, 
By what f...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...am? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop? 

Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow. 

Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments. 

But these things are not yet to be. 

In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shal...Read more of this...



by Wilde, Oscar
...ell, for with it come
Pale boy's-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own he...Read more of this...

by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...stars and the sun.
Before the growth was the grower, and the seed ere the plant was sown;
But what was seed of the sower? and the grain of him, whence was it grown?
Foot after foot ye go back and travail and make yourselves mad;
Blind feet that feel for the track where highway is none to be had.
Therefore the God that ye make you is grievous, and gives not aid,
Because it is but for your sake that the God of your making is made.
Thou and I and he are not gods mad...Read more of this...

by Henley, William Ernest
...autumn, and frail winter blossoms—
Reaping, still reaping—
All things with heedful hook
Timely I gather.

I am the Sower.
All the unbodied life
Runs through my seed-sheet.
Atom with atom wed,
Each quickening the other,
Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless.
Ceaselessly sowing,
Life, incorruptible life,
Flows from my seed-sheet.

Maker and breaker,
I am the ebb and the flood,
Here and Hereafter,
Sped through the tangle and coil
Of infinite...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...I tend my flowers for thee --
Bright Absentee!
My Fuchsia's Coral Seams
Rip -- while the Sower -- dreams --

Geraniums -- tint -- and spot --
Low Daisies -- dot --
My Cactus -- splits her Beard
To show her throat --

Carnations -- tip their spice --
And Bees -- pick up --
A Hyacinth -- I hid --
Puts out a Ruffled Head --
And odors fall
From flasks -- so small --
You marvel how they held --

Globe Roses -- break their satin glake --
Upon my Garde...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...the season's dues. 
May children curse the sun, 
Sweet briar and grass refuse 
To compromise the spring, 
And both sower and seed 
Choke on the summer's weed. 

Those promises we heard 
We heard in ignorance; 
The numbered days we named, 
And, in our innocence, 
Assumed the beast was tamed. 
On a bare limb, a bird, 
Alone, arrived, with wings 
Frozen, holds on and sings....Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...
The secret of the soil, -- to receive seed.
The secret of the seed, -- the germ.
The secret of man, -- the sower.
The secret of woman, -- the soil.
My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find....Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...draw his 
Inspiration, and stays up in the silence of the night, 
Awaiting the descending of the spirit. 


He is a sower who sows the seeds of his heart in the 
Prairies of affection, and humanity reaps the 
Harvest for her nourishment. 


This is the poet -- whom the people ignore in this life, 
And who is recognized only when he bids the earthly 
World farewell and returns to his arbor in heaven. 


This is the poet -- who asks naught of 
Humanity but a smile.<...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...(Matthew, xiii.3)

Ye sons of earth prepare the plough,
Break up your fallow ground;
The sower is gone forth to sow,
And scatter blessings round.

The seed that finds a stony soil
Shoots forth a hasty blade;
But ill repays the sower's toil,
Soon wither'd, scorch'd, and dead.

The thorny ground is sure to balk
All hopes of harvest there;
We find a tall and sickly stalk,
But not the fruitful ear.

The beaten path and highway side,
Rece...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...Sure of the spring that warms them into birth,
The golden seeds thou trustest to the earth;
And dost thou doubt the eternal spring sublime,
For deeds--the seeds which wisdom sows in time....Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...st, 
 Twilight hastens on to rule— 
 Working hours are wellnigh past 
 
 Shadows shoot across the lands; 
 But one sower lingers still, 
 Old, in rags, he patient stands,— 
 Looking on, I feel a thrill. 
 
 Black and high his silhouette 
 Dominates the furrows deep! 
 Now to sow the task is set, 
 Soon shall come a time to reap. 
 
 Marches he along the plain, 
 To and fro, and scatters wide 
 From his hands the precious grain; 
 Moody, I, to see him stride. ...Read more of this...

by Morris, William
...sdom are but fleeting images
Of her hosts that abide in the heavens, and her light that Allfather sees:
Yet wise is the sower that sows, and wise is the reaper that reaps,
And wise is the smith in his smiting, and wise is the warder that keeps:
And wise shalt thou be to deliver, and I shall be wise to desire;
--And lo, the tale that is told, and the sword and the wakening fire!
Lo now, I am she that loveth, and hark how Greyfell neighs,
And Fafnir's Bed is gleaming, and green...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things