Famous Spot Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Spot

by Thomas Hardy
 In years defaced and lost, 
 Two sat here, transport-tossed, 
 Lit by a living love 
The wilted world knew nothing of: 
 Scared momently 
 By gaingivings, 
 Then hoping things 
 That could not be. 

 Of love and us no trace 
 Abides upon the place; 
 The sun and shadows wheel, 
Season and season sereward...Read more of this...

Squatters Children

by Elizabeth Bishop
 On the unbreathing sides of hills
they play, a specklike girl and boy,
alone, but near a specklike house.
The Sun's suspended eye
blinks casually, and then they wade
gigantic waves of light and shade.
A dancing yellow spot, a pup,
attends them. Clouds are piling up; 

a storm piles up behind the house.
The children play at digging holes.
The ground is hard; they try to use
one...Read more of this...

You

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Only a long, low-lying lane
That follows to the misty sea,
Across a bare and russet plain
Where wild winds whistle vagrantly;
I know that many a fairer path
With lure of song and bloom may woo,
But oh ! I love this lonely strath
Because it is so full of you. 

Here we have walked in elder years,
And here your truest memories wait,
This spot is...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXXIII: In Paris at the Louvre

by George Meredith
 'In Paris, at the Louvre, there have I seen 
The sumptuously-feathered angel pierce 
Prone Lucifer, descending. Looked he fierce, 
Showing the fight a fair one? Too serene! 
The young Pharsalians did not disarray 
Less willingly their locks of floating silk: 
That suckling mouth of his, upon the milk 
Of heaven might still be feasting through the fray. 
Oh, Raphael!...Read more of this...

Snowin'

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dey is snow upon de meddahs, dey is snow upon de hill,
An' de little branch's watahs is all glistenin' an' still;
De win' goes roun' de cabin lak a sperrit wan'erin' 'roun'.
An' de chillen shakes an' shivahs as dey listen to de soun'.
Dey is hick'ry in de fiahplace, whah de blaze is risin' high,
But de heat it meks ain't wa'min' up...Read more of this...

Elegy to the Memory of David Garrick Esq

by Mary Darby Robinson
 DEAR SHADE OF HIM, who grac'd the mimick scene,
And charm'd attention with resistless pow'r;
Whose wond'rous art, whose fascinating mien,
Gave glowing rapture to the short-liv'd hour! 

Accept the mournful verse, the ling'ring sigh,
The tear that faithful Mem'ry stays to shed;
The SACRED TEAR, that from Reflection's eye,
Drops on the ashes of the sainted dead. 

Lov'd by the grave, and courted by...Read more of this...

The Heathrose

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 ONCE a boy a Rosebud spied,

Heathrose fair and tender,
All array'd in youthful pride,--
Quickly to the spot he hied,

Ravished by her splendour.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,

Heathrose fair and tender!

Said the boy, "I'll now pick thee,

Heathrose fair and tender!"
Said the rosebud, "I'll prick thee,
So that thou'lt remember me,

Ne'er will I surrender!"
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,

Heathrose fair and tender!

Now the cruel boy must pick

Heathrose...Read more of this...

Hymn 20

by Isaac Watts
 Spiritual apparel.

Isa. 61:10. 

Awake, my heart; arise, my tongue,
Prepare a tuneful voice;
In God, the life of all my joys,
Aloud will I rejoice.

'Tis he adorned my naked soul,
And made salvation mine;
Upon a poor polluted worm
He makes his graces shine.

And lest the shadow of a spot
Should on my soul be found,
He took the robe the Savior wrought,
And cast it all around.

How...Read more of this...

Sonnet 104 - A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece

by John Berryman
 A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece,
Diminutive, but room enough . . like clay
To finger eager on some torrid day . .
Who'd throw her black hair back, and hang, and tease.
Never, not once in all one's horny lease
To'have had a demi-lay, a pretty, gay,
Snug, slim and supple-breasted girl for play . .
She bats her big, warm eyes, and...Read more of this...

Life

by Charlotte Bronte
 I leave the office, take the stairs,
in time to mail a letter
before 3 in the afternoon--the last dispatch.
The red, white and blue air mail
falls past the slot for foreign mail
and hits bottom with a sound
that tells me my letter is alone.
They will have to bring in a plane
from a place of coastline and beaches,
from a climate of fresh figs...Read more of this...

Different Emotions On The Same Spot

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE MAIDEN.

I'VE seen him before me!
What rapture steals o'er me!

Oh heavenly sight!
He's coming to meet me;
Perplex'd, I retreat me,

With shame take to flight.
My mind seems to wander!
Ye rocks and trees yonder,

Conceal ye my rapture.

Conceal my delight!

THE YOUTH.

'Tis here I must find her,
'Twas here she enshrined her,

Here vanish'd from sight.
She came, as to meet me,
Then fearing to greet me,

With shame...Read more of this...

The Alchemist in the City

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 My window shews the travelling clouds, 
Leaves spent, new seasons, alter'd sky, 
The making and the melting crowds: 
The whole world passes; I stand by.

They do not waste their meted hours, 
But men and masters plan and build: 
I see the crowning of their towers, 
And happy promises fulfill'd.

And I - perhaps if my intent
Could count on prediluvian age,...Read more of this...

Step lightly on this narrow spot --

by Emily Dickinson
 Step lightly on this narrow spot --
The broadest Land that grows
Is not so ample as the Breast
These Emerald Seams enclose.

Step lofty, for this name be told
As far as Cannon dwell
Or Flag subsist or Fame export
Her deathless Syllable....Read more of this...

Long Time I Lay In Little Ease

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE


LONG time I lay in little ease
Where, placed by the Turanian,
Marseilles, the many-masted, sees
The blue Mediterranean.

Now songful in the hour of sport,
Now riotous for wages,
She camps around her ancient port,
As ancient of the ages.

Algerian airs through all the place
Unconquerably sally;
Incomparable women pace
The shadows of the alley.

And high o'er dark and graving yard
And where...Read more of this...

Sonnet 23

by John Milton
 XXIII

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the Old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heav'n without...Read more of this...

Ode to the Memory of Burns

by Thomas Campbell
 Soul of the Poet ! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality ;
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and Strife, at Burn's name,
Exorcised by his memory ;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And...Read more of this...

The River of Leith

by William Topaz McGonagall
 As I stood upon the Dean Bridge and viewed the beautiful scenery,
I felt fascinated and my heart was full of glee,
And I exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight,
In all my travels I never saw such a sight. 

The scenery is so enchanting to look upon
That all tourists will say, "Dull care, be gone."
'Tis certainly a most lovely spot,
And once...Read more of this...

We like March

by Emily Dickinson
 We like March.
His Shoes are Purple --
He is new and high --
Makes he Mud for Dog and Peddler.
Makes he Forests dry.
Knows the Adder Tongue his coming
And presents her Spot --
Stands the Sun so close and mighty
That our Minds are hot.

News is he of all the others --
Bold it were to die
With the Blue Birds exercising
On his British Sky.

---

We like...Read more of this...

The Consecrated Spot

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHEN in the dance of the Nymphs, in the moonlight so holy assembled,

Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret descending,
Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their numbers enthralling,

Here doth he watch their silent dances' mysterious measure.
All that is glorious in Heaven, and all that the earth in her beauty

Ever hath brought into life, the dreamer awake...Read more of this...

A British-Roman Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 (A. D. 406)

"A Centurion of the Thirtieth" -- Puck of Pook's Hill

My father's father saw it not,
 And I, belike, shall never come 
To look on that so-holly spot--
 That very Rome--

Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
 The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height--
 The Race began!

 Soon to send forth again a...Read more of this...

Eldorado

by Edgar Allan Poe
 Gaily bedight,
 A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
 Had journeyed long,
 Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

 But he grew old--
 This knight so bold--
And o'er his heart a shadow
 Fell as he found
 No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

 And, as his strength
 Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
 "Shadow," said he,
 "Where can...Read more of this...

Garden-Spot

by Dorothy Parker
 God's acre was her garden-spot, she said;
She sat there often, of the Summer days,
Little and slim and sweet, among the dead,
Her hair a fable in the leveled rays.

She turned the fading wreath, the rusted cross,
And knelt to coax about the wiry stem.
I see her gentle fingers on the moss
Now it is anguish to remember them.

And once I saw her...Read more of this...

Her Death And After

by Thomas Hardy
 'TWAS a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate--
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.

And there, as I paused by her tenement,
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone--
Him who made...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXVIII. Quel sol che mi mostrava il cammin destro. LOVE AND HE SEEK LAURA, BUT FIND NO TRACES OF HER EXCEPT IN THE SKY.  That sun, which ever signall'd the right road,Where flash'd her own bright feet, to heaven to fly,Returning to the Eternal Sun on high,Has quench'd my light, and...Read more of this...

Coole Park And Ballylee 1931

by William Butler Yeats
 Under my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face
Then darkening through 'dark' Raftery's 'cellar' drop,
Run underground, rise in a rocky place
In Coole demesne, and there to finish up
Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.
What's water but the generated soul?

Upon the border of that lake's a wood
Now all...Read more of this...

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