Famous Sparks Poems by Famous Poets

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

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LEnvoi

by Robert William Service
 My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready,
 My word-battalions marching verse by verse;
Here stanza-companies are none too steady;
 There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse.
And as in marshalled order I review them,
 My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray,
My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them
 Immortal visions of an epic day.

It seems I'm...Read more of this...

The Mountain Village

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 "THE mountain village was destroy'd;
But see how soon is fill'd the void!
Shingles and boards, as by magic arise,
The babe in his cradle and swaddling-clothes lies;
How blest to trust to God's protection!"

Behold a wooden new ********,
So that, if sparks and wind but choose,
God's self at such a game must lose!

 1821.*...Read more of this...

African Writings

by Godfrey Mutiso Gorry
 If you meet literature from Africa
Or even their mentors
In such works
You realize a trait of madness
Pumping into the throbbing poetics.
There is a knack in it that sparks alight
The nearest shrubs;
Intrigue and sensation incomparable.
The heart of African literature
Pumping wordy blood into fragile young minds.
Rejuvenating the African word
That merges into a whirlpool mixture
Of creativity, and strengthen our verbosity.
Impregnated words
Be borne from...Read more of this...

An Embroidery

by Denise Levertov
 Rose Red's hair is brown as fur
and shines in firelight as she prepares
supper of honey and apples, curds and whey,
for the bear, and leaves it ready
on the hearth-stone.

Rose White's grey eyes
look into the dark forest.

Rose Red's cheeks are burning,
sign of her ardent, joyful
compassionate heart.
Rose White is pale,
turning away when she hears
the bear's paw on the latch.

When he enters, there...Read more of this...

The Firemens Ball

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...

Night Piece to Julia

by Robert Herrick
 Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee, 
And the elves also, 
Whose little eyes glow 
Like sparks of fire befriend thee. 

No will-o'th'-wisp mislight thee; 
No snake or slow-worm bite thee; 
But on, on thy way, 
Not making a stay, 
Since ghost there's none to affright thee. 

Let not the dark thee cumber; 
What through...Read more of this...

The Mystic Blue

by D. H. Lawrence
 Out of the darkness, fretted sometimes in its sleeping,
Jets of sparks in fountains of blue come leaping
To sight, revealing a secret, numberless secrets keeping.

Sometimes the darkness trapped within a wheel
Runs into speed like a dream, the blue of the steel
Showing the rocking darkness now a-reel. 

And out of the invisible, streams of bright blue drops
Rain from the showery heavens,...Read more of this...

Emily Sparks

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Where is my boy, my boy --
In what far part of the world?
The boy I loved best of all in the school? --
I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart,
Who made them all my children.
Did I know my boy aright,
Thinking of him as a spirit aflame,
Active, ever aspiring?
Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed
In many a...Read more of this...

Zone

by Guillaume Apollinaire
ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient...Read more of this...

The Village Blacksmith

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
UNDER a spreading chestnut tree 
The village smithy stands; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 
With large and sinewy hands; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 5 
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long, 
His face is like the tan; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat, 
He earns whate'er he can,...Read more of this...

Reminiscence of Mahomed Akram

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   I shall never forget you, never.  Never escape
   Your memory woven about the beautiful things of life.

   The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound
             When it comes unsought
   On some scent of Jasmin, Lilies, or...Read more of this...

The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that 's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many...Read more of this...

The Bell-ringer

by Emile Verhaeren
Yon, in the depths of the evening's track,
Like a herd of blind bullocks that seek their fellows,
Wild, as in terror, the tempest bellows.
And suddenly, there, o'er the gables black
That the church, in the twilight, around it raises
All scored with lightnings the steeple blazes.


See the old bell-ringer, frenzied with fear.
Mouth gaping, yet speechless, draw hastening near.
And the knell of alarm that...Read more of this...

To Some Birds Flown Away

by Victor Hugo
 ("Enfants! Oh! revenez!") 
 
 {XXII, April, 1837} 


 Children, come back—come back, I say— 
 You whom my folly chased away 
 A moment since, from this my room, 
 With bristling wrath and words of doom! 
 What had you done, you bandits small, 
 With lips as red as roses all? 
 What crime?—what wild and...Read more of this...

Merlin I

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of...Read more of this...

The Awakening River

by Katherine Mansfield
 The gulls are mad-in-love with the river,
And the river unveils her face and smiles.
In her sleep-brooding eyes they mirror their shining wings.
She lies on silver pillows: the sun leans over her.
He warms and warms her, he kisses and kisses her.
There are sparks in her hair and she stirs in laughter.
Be careful, my beautiful waking one! You will catch
on fire.
Wheeling...Read more of this...

legs rivers and age

by Rg Gregory
 with landbound legs a wish
for the easy flow of a river - not 
the clambering up crags to seek 
more favour from the sun
(or long-haired moon) harped for
since those sparks of who am i 
first clicked through consciousness

how the river sidles round 
rocks blocking the painful straight
seems to brush aside
all snags disrupting its ambition
to be sea - certain from...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXXXII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXXXII. Come 'l candido piè per l' erba fresca. HER WALK, LOOKS, WORDS, AND AIR.  As o'er the fresh grass her fair form its sweetAnd graceful passage makes at evening hours,Seems as around the newly-wakening flowersFound virtue issue from her delicate feet.Love, which in true hearts only has his seat,Read more of this...

Ballata III

by Francesco Petrarch
BALLATA III. Quel foco, ch' io pensai che fosse spento. HE THOUGHT HIMSELF FREE, BUT FINDS THAT HE IS MORE THAN EVER ENTHRALLED BY LOVE.  That fire for ever which I thought at rest,Quench'd in the chill blood of my ripen'd years,Awakes new flames and torment in my breast.Its sparks were never...Read more of this...

We met as Sparks -- Diverging Flints

by Emily Dickinson
 We met as Sparks -- Diverging Flints
Sent various -- scattered ways --
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze --
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark --
A Flint unto this Day -- perhaps --
But for that single Spark....Read more of this...

The Speed Of Light

by W S Merwin
 So gradual in those summers was the going
 of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
 leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
 opening into the sky was something of ours
to have...Read more of this...

Reuben Pantier

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,
Your love was not all in vain.
I owe whatever I was in life
To your hope that would not give me up,
To your love that saw me still as good.
Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story.
I pass the effect of my father and mother;
The milliner's daughter made me trouble
And out I...Read more of this...

The Progress of Spring

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 THE groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould, 
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea, 
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold 
That trembles not to kisses of the bee: 
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves 
The spear of ice has wept itself away, 
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves 
O'er his uncertain...Read more of this...

The Quality of Courage

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 Black trees against an orange sky, 
Trees that the wind shook terribly, 
Like a harsh spume along the road, 
Quavering up like withered arms, 
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms 
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below 
The iron ice stung like a goad, 
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet, 
And all the air was bitter sleet. 

And...Read more of this...

Dear Colette

by Erica Jong
 Dear Colette,
I want to write to you
about being a woman
for that is what you write to me.

I want to tell you how your face
enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . .
hangs above my desk
like my own muse.

I want to tell you how your hands
reach out from your books
& seize my heart.

I want to tell you how your hair
electrifies my thoughts
like...Read more of this...

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