Famous Starlings Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Crow Goes Hunting

...ting, resounding. 

Crow turned the words into bombs-they blasted the bunker. 
The bits of bunker flew up-a flock of starlings. 

Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings. 
The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst. 

Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water. 
The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir. 

The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow's words. 

Crow ...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Ted


Doubt No More That Oberon

...to fays,
Still the dog-wood dares to raise—
Healthy tree, with trunk and root—
Ivory bowls that bear no fruit,
And the starlings and the jays—
Birds that cannot even sing—
Dare to come again in spring!...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

For The Country

...THE DREAM

This has nothing to do with war 
or the end of the world. She 
dreams there are gray starlings 
on the winter lawn and the buds 
of next year's oranges alongside 
this year's oranges, and the sun 
is still up, a watery circle 
of fire settling into the sky 
at dinner time, but there's no 
flame racing through the house 
or threatening the bed. When she 
wakens the phone is ringing 
in a distant room, but she 
doesn't go to answer it. No 
one...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

Forgotten Language

...language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?...Read more of this...
by Silverstein, Shel

Grandad

...Greybeard of the village.

Heaven's mighty fine, I know . . . .
Still, it ain't so bad here.
See them maples all aglow;
Starlings seem so glad here:
I'll be mighty peeved to go,
Scrumptious times I've had here.

Lord, I know You'll understand.
With Your Light You'll lead me.
Though I'm not the pious brand,
I'm here when You need me.
Gosh! I know that HEAVEN'S GRAND,
But dang it! God, don't speed me....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


In Springtime

...-
 Can you tell me aught of England or of Spring in England now?


* koil -- Then Indian bell-bird.
 sat-bhai -- Indian starlings....Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Inferno (English)

...moanings quench the screaming air, 
 The cries of their blaspheming. 
 These
 are they 
 That lust made sinful. As the starlings rise 
 At autumn, darkening all the colder skies, 
 In crowded troops their wings up-bear, so here 
 These evil-doers on each contending blast 
 Were lifted upward, whirled, and downward cast, 
 And swept around unceasing. Striving airs 
 Lift them, and hurl, nor ever hope is theirs 
 Of rest or respite or decreasing pains, 
 But like the long stre...Read more of this...
by Alighieri, Dante

On The Skeleton Of A Hound

...ight weave his shadow tall,
Milkweed and dew flow upward to his throat.
Now catbird feathers plume the apple mound,
And starlings drowse to winter up the ground.
thickened away from speech by fear, I move
Around the body. Over his forepaws, steep
Declivities darken down the moonlight now,
And the long throat that bayed a year ago
Declines from summer. Flies would love to leap
Between his eyes and hum away the space
Between the ears, the hollow where a hare
Could hide; another...Read more of this...
by Wright, James

Requiescat In Pace!

...y spirit, for they talked of me.
I was the old man's daughter, the bird went on to name him;
  "He loved to count the starlings as he sat in the sun;
Long ago he served with Nelson, and his story did not shame him:
  Ay, the old man was a good man—and his work was done."
The skiff was like a crescent, ghost of some moon departed,
  Frail, white, she rocked and curtseyed as the red wave she crossed,
And the thing within sat paddling, and the crescent dipped and darted,
...Read more of this...
by Ingelow, Jean

Round-Pond

...o the eye 
As the wind to the cheek. 

In the budding chestnuts 
Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open 
The starlings make their clitter-clatter; 
And the blackbirds in the grass 
Are getting as fat as the pigeons. 

Too-hoo, this is brave; 
Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress....Read more of this...
by Aldington, Richard

Tar

...
quehanna at those looming stacks.
But, more vividly, the men, silvered with glitter from the shingles, cling-
ing like starlings beneath the eaves.
Even the leftover carats of tar in the gutter, so black they seemed to suck 
the light out of the air.
By nightfall kids had come across them: every sidewalk on the block was 
scribbled with obscenities and hearts....Read more of this...
by Williams, C K

The Return

...idered but decided to go alone,
determined to find what he had never found.
Slowly the autumn morning warmed, flocks of starlings
rose above the vacant fields and blotted out the sun.
I drove on until I found the grove of apple trees
heavy with fruit, and left the car, the motor running,
beside a sagging fence, and entered his life
on my own for maybe the first time. A crow welcomed
me home, the sun rode above, austere and silent,
the early afternoon was cloudless, perfect.
W...Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip

To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph

...labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! 
There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; 
and here are the shocked starlings pumping past 
and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well: 
larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast 
of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings! 
Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually 
he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling 
into that hot eye. Who cares that feel back to the sea? 
See him acclaiming the sun a...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

Tractor

...st torn off.
I stare at it in hatred. Beyond it
The copse hisses - capitulates miserably
In the fleeing, failing light. Starlings,
A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over
Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice. 

The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother -
While the seat claims my but...Read more of this...
by Hughes, Ted

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