Famous Springs Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Lips and Eyes

by Thomas Carew
 IN Celia's face a question did arise,
Which were more beautiful, her lips or eyes ? 
“ We,” said the eyes, “send forth those pointed darts 
Which pierce the hardest adamantine hearts.” 
“ From us,” repli'd the lips, “proceed those blisses 
Which lovers reap by kind words and sweet kisses.” 
Then wept the eyes, and from their springs did pour...Read more of this...

Voices Of the Night

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 PRELUDE.

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
No sunlight from above
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
I lay upon the ground;
His...Read more of this...

Let Love Go If Go She Will

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 LET love go, if go she will.
Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.
Of all she gives and takes away
The best remains behind her still.

The best remains behind; in vain
Joy she may give and take again,
Joy she may take and leave us pain,
If yet she leave behind
The constant mind
To meet all fortunes nobly, to endure
All things with a...Read more of this...

At the War Office London

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

Last year I called this world of gain-givings 
The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly 
If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly, 
So charged it seemed with circumstance whence springs 
 The tragedy of things. 

II 

Yet at that censured time no heart was rent 
Or feature blanched of parent, wife, or daughter 
By hourly blazoned...Read more of this...

from the Ansty Experience

by Rg Gregory
 (a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
whose beat lies naked on a table
not to score in triumph on a line
no sensitive would put a nostril to
but simply to receive it as an
offering glimpsing the sacred there

poem probes the poet's once-intention
but each time said budges its truth
afresh (leaving...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XCI. Dell' empia Babilonia, ond' è fuggita. LEAVING ROME, HE DESIRES ONLY PEACE WITH LAURA AND PROSPERITY TO COLONNA.  Yes, out of impious Babylon I'm flown,Whence flown all shame, whence banish'd is all good,That nurse of error, and of guilt th' abode,To lengthen out a life which else were gone:Read more of this...

The Robing of the King

by George William Russell
 ON the bird of air blue-breasted glint the rays of gold,
And its shadowy fleece above us waves the forest old,
Far through rumorous leagues of midnight stirred by breezes warm.
See the old ascetic yonder, ah, poor withered form,
Where he crouches wrinkled over by unnumbered years
Through the leaves the flakes of moon-fire fall like phantom tears.
At the dawn a kingly hunter...Read more of this...

Quite empty quite at rest

by Emily Dickinson
 Quite empty, quite at rest,
The Robin locks her Nest, and tries her Wings.
She does not know a Route
But puts her Craft about
For rumored Springs --
She does not ask for Noon --
She does not ask for Boon,
Crumbless and homeless, of but one request --
The Birds she lost --...Read more of this...

How Springs Came First

by Robert Herrick
 These springs were maidens once that loved,
But lost to that they most approved:
My story tells, by Love they were
Turn'd to these springs which we see here:
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the banks their leave they take,
Tells ye but this, they are the same,
In nothing changed but in their name....Read more of this...

The Weeper

by Richard Crashaw
 HAIL, sister springs,
Parents of silver-footed rills!
 Ever bubbling things,
Thawing crystal, snowy hills!
 Still spending, never spent; I mean
 Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene.

 Heavens thy fair eyes be;
Heavens of ever-falling stars;
 'Tis seed-time still with thee,
And stars thou sow'st whose harvest dares
 Promise the earth to countershine
 Whatever makes Heaven's forehead fine.

 Every morn from hence
A brisk cherub something...Read more of this...

In Valleys of Springs and Rivers

by A E Housman
 "Clunton and Clunbury,
Clungunford and Clun,
Are the quietest places
Under the sun."


In valleys of springs and rivers, 
By Ony and Teme and Clun, 
The country for easy livers, 
The quietest under the sun, 

We still had sorrows to lighten, 
One could not be always glad, 
And lads knew trouble at Knighton 
When I was a Knighton lad. 

By bridges that Thames...Read more of this...

Psalm 57

by Isaac Watts
 Praise for protection, grace, and truth.

My God, in whom are all the springs
Of boundless love, and grace unknown,
Hide me beneath thy spreading wings,
Till the dark cloud is overblown.

Up to the heav'ns I send my cry,
The Lord will my desires perform;
He sends his angel from the sky,
And saves me from the threat'ning storm.

Be thou exalted, O my God,
Above the heav'ns,...Read more of this...

The Timber

by Henry Vaughan
 Sure thou didst flourish once! and many springs, 
Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, 
Pass'd o'er thy head; many light hearts and wings, 
Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. 

And still a new succession sings and flies; 
Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot 
Towards the old and still enduring skies, 
While the...Read more of this...

Futility

by Claude McKay
 Oh, I have tried to laugh the pain away, 
Let new flames brush my love-springs like a feather. 
But the old fever seizes me to-day, 
As sickness grips a soul in wretched weather. 
I have given up myself to every urge, 
With not a care of precious powers spent, 
Have bared my body to the strangest scourge, 
To soothe...Read more of this...

My Springs

by Sidney Lanier
 In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know
Two springs that with unbroken flow
Forever pour their lucent streams
Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.

Not larger than two eyes, they lie
Beneath the many-changing sky
And mirror all of life and time,
-- Serene and dainty pantomime.

Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,
And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,
-- Thus heaven...Read more of this...

from Asphodel That Greeny Flower

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
 like a buttercup
 upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
 I come, my sweet,
 to sing to you.
We lived long together
 a life filled,
 if you will,
with flowers. So that
 I was cheered
 when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
 in hell.
 Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of...Read more of this...

A Letter From the Trenches to a School Friend

by Charles Sorley
 I have not brought my Odyssey
With me here across the sea;
But you'll remember, when I say
How, when they went down Sparta way,
To sandy Sparta, long ere dawn
Horses were harnessed, rations drawn,
Equipment polished sparkling bright,
And breakfasts swallowed (as the white
Of eastern heavens turned to gold) -
The dogs barked, swift farewells were told.
The sun springs up, the horses neigh,
Crackles the whip...Read more of this...

A Swimmers Dream

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...

THE Complaint of a Lover

by Anne Killigrew
 SEest thou younder craggy Rock, 
 Whose Head o'er-looks the swelling Main, 
Where never Shepherd fed his Flock, 
 Or careful Peasant sow'd his Grain. 
No wholesome Herb grows on the same, 
 Or Bird of Day will on it rest;
'Tis Barren as the Hopeless Flame, 
 That scortches my tormented Breast. 

Deep underneath a Cave does lie, 
...Read more of this...

True Pleasures

by William Cowper
 Lord, my soul with pleasure springs
When Jesu's name I hear:
And when God the Spirit brings
The word of promise near:
Beauties too, in holiness,
Still delighted I perceive;
Nor have words that can express
The joys Thy precepts give.

Clothed in sanctity and grace,
How sweet it is to see
Those who love Thee as they pass,
Or when they wait on Thee.
Pleasant too to sit and tell
What...Read more of this...

Sonnet to William Wilberforce Esq

by William Cowper
 Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,
Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call'd
Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose th' enthrall'd
From exile, public sale, and slav'ry's chain.
Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd,
Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain!
Thou hast achiev'd a part; hast gain'd the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause;
Hope smiles, joy springs, and...Read more of this...

Love Lies Sleeping

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
 coupling the ends of streets 
 to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
 put out the neon shapes 
 that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows,...Read more of this...

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

by William Wordsworth
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length 
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.  Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I...Read more of this...

Ash Wednesday

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the...Read more of this...

To the Fringed Gentian

by William Cullen Bryant
 Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late and com'st alone, 
When woods are bare and...Read more of this...

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