Famous Starry Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Starry poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous starry poems. These examples illustrate what a famous starry poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rainer Maria Rilke
In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.
In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp...Read more of this...
by
Sarojini Naidu
SHALT thou be conquered of a human fate
My liege, my lover, whose imperial head
Hath never bent in sorrow of defeat?
Shalt thou be vanquished, whose imperial feet
Have shattered armies and stamped empires dead?
Who shall unking thee, husband of a queen?
Wear thou thy majesty inviolate.
Earth's glories flee of human eyes unseen,
Earth's kingdoms fade...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
THE HEAVENS lay hold on us: the starry rays
Fondle with flickering fingers brow and eyes:
A new enchantment lights the ancient skies.
What is it looks between us gaze on gaze;
Does the wild spirit of the endless days
Chase through my heart some lure that ever flies?
Only I know the vast within me cries
Finding in thee the ending of all ways.
Ah, but...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
THOU orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;
O sun of noon rufulgent! my special word to thee.
Hear me illustrious!
Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,
Even as basking babe, then...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Observant of the way she told
So much of what was true,
No vanity could long withhold
Regard that was her due:
She spared him the familiar guide,
So easily achieved,
That only made a man to smile
And left him undeceived.
Aware that all imagining
Of more than what she meant
Would urge an end of everything,
He stayed; and when he went,
They...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
WHAT flower is this that greets the morn,
Its hues from Heaven so freshly born?
With burning star and flaming band
It kindles all the sunset land:
Oh tell us what its name may be,--
Is this the Flower of Liberty?
It is the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
In savage Nature's far abode
Its tender seed our fathers sowed;
The storm-winds rocked its...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Said Will: "I'll stay and till the land."
Said Jack: "I'll sail the sea."
So one went forth kit-bag in hand,
The other ploughed the lea.
They met again at Christmas-tide,
And wistful were the two.
Said Jack: "you're lucky here to bide."
Said Will: "I envy you."
"For in your eyes a light I see
Of tropic shores agleam."
Said Jack: "You need not envy me,
For...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
When the starry sky covers our dwelling, we hush for hours before its intense and gentle fire, so that we may feel a greater and more fervent stirring within us.
The great silver stars follow their courses high up in the heavens; beneath the flames and the gleams, night spreads out its depths, and the calm is so great that the...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then
I go out at night to paint the stars.
--Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother
The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils...Read more of this...
by
James Stephens
I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear
A sound, a little sound? My curious ear
Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree
Goes -- whisper, whisper, whisper silently
Till all its whispers spread into the sound
Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground,
The shade is deep and He may pass us by.
We...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
ON either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot; 5
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 10
Little breezes...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Striving is life, yet life is striving;
I fight to live, yet live to fight;
The vital urge is in my driving,
Yet I must drive with all my might:
Each day a battle, and the fray
Stoutly renewed the coming day.
A am myself - yet when I strive
I build a self that's truer, higher;
I keep my bit of God alive
And forgive me in...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
I saw my soul at rest upon a day
As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
And knew...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
WITH the glamour of the Gay
How you made our hearts to flame;
Gave each life some airy aim:
Ever round you seemed to play
Sunlight from some inner day.
Dazzling as with red and gold;
Rich with beauty, love and youth—
How were we to know the truth,
That if all the tale were told
Life for you was sad and cold?
For you found if we would...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Allan Poe
Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine-
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!"- but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
The starry aspects are not all benign;
Why toil then after vain desires, and pine
To lade thyself with load of fortune's boons,
Only to drop it with this life of thine?...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Yes," I answered you last night;
"No," this morning, Sir, I say.
Colours seen by candlelight,
Will not look the same by day.
When the viols played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below---
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for Yes or fit for No.
Call me false, or call me free---
Vow, whatever light may shine,
No man on your face shall see
Any grief for change...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
The Devil is a gentleman and askes you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids...Read more of this...
by
Lisel Mueller
Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard's woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pop
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose,...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
Pureness of pale moon, loneness of far skies,
Splendour of starry regions & bright sun,
Grandeur of universal vastnesses,
Sweetness of flower, staunchness of stalwart tree,
Delicacy of small verdures ev’ry one,
Loveliness of all lowly forms that be,
Gladness of ev’ry bird that gaily sings,
Ardour of eager beasts that hunt & kill,
Rapture of all life-raptur’d living things;
Yea man’s one rapture too & his life’s joy,
His...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A cloud fell down from the heavens,
And broke on the mountain's brow;
It scattered the dusky fragments
All over the vale below.
The moon and the stars were anxious
To know what its fate might be;
So they rushed to the azure op'ning,
And all peered down to see.
...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
[Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]
Velvet soft the night-star glowed
Over the untrodden road,
Through the giant glades of yew
Where its ray fell light as dew
Lighting up the shimmering veil
Maiden pure and aery frail
That the spiders wove to hide
Blushes of the sylvan bride
Earth, that trembled with delight
At the male caress of Night.
Velvet...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.
The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn'd—
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
There is some that likes the city--
Grass that's curried smooth and green,
Theaytres and stranglin' collars,
Wagons run by gasoline--
But for me it's hawse and saddle
Every day without a change,
And a desert sun a-blazin'
On a hundred miles of...Read more of this...
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