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Famous Stealth Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Suckling, Sir John
...then the house: 
The bride's came thick and thick; 
And when 'twas named another's health, 
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth. 
And who could help it, Dick?

O' th' sudden, up they rise and dance; 
Then sit again and sigh and glance; 
Then dance again and kiss. 
Thus several ways the time did pass, 
Whilst every woman wished her place, 
And every man wished his!

By this time all were stolen aside 
To counsel and undress the bride; 
But that he must not know; 
And y...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...f a man would press his lips to lips
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips
The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?

XIII

"It cannot change the love kept still for Her,
Much more than, such a picture to prefer
Passing a day with, to a room's bare side.
The painted form takes nothing she possessed,
Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at rest
A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?"

XIV

So must I see, from where I sit and watch,
My own self sell my...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...nd the returning well,
Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell? 

Ye know who use the Crystal Ball 
 (To peer by stealth on Doom), 
The Shade that, shaping first of all, 
 Prepares an empty room. 
 Then doth it pass 
 Like breath from glass,
But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, 
No man considers why It came or went.

Before the years reborn behold 
 Themselves with stranger eye, 
And the sport-making Gods of old,
 Like Samson slaying, die, 
 Many shall hea...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...e hall is silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth;
And I beseech your courtesy,
This night, to share your couch with me.'

They crossed the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;
A little door she opened straight,
All in the middle of the gate;
The gate that was ironed within and without,
Where an army in battle array had marched out.
The lady sank, belike through pain...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...r> O my loved master's heir, and his next joy,
I came not here on such a trivial toy
As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth
Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth
That doth enrich these downs is worth a thought
To this my errand, and the care it brought.
But, oh ! my virgin Lady, where is she?
How chance she is not in your company?
 ELD. BRO. To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame
Or our neglect, we lost her as we came.
 SPIR. Ay me unhappy!...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...pheus,
In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;
Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook
Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,
Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth
Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,
Until my head was dizzy and distraught.
Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole
A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;
And shaping visions all about my sight
Of colours, wings, and bursts of spangly light;
The which became more strange, and stran...Read more of this...

by Owen, Wilfred
...We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
 But nothing happens.


 II

Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces --
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
 Is it that we are dying?

Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jing...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...s and bells of May, 
From dewy sward or thorny spray; 
All the heap¨¨d Autumn's wealth, 35 
With a still, mysterious stealth: 
She will mix these pleasures up 
Like three fit wines in a cup, 
And thou shalt quaff it:¡ªthou shalt hear 
Distant harvest-carols clear; 40 
Rustle of the reap¨¨d corn; 
Sweet birds antheming the morn: 
And, in the same moment¡ªhark! 
'Tis the early April lark, 
Or the rooks, with busy caw, 45 
Foraging for sticks and straw. 
Thou s...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...et I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...to have called her mine
In the full view of earth and heaven;
For I did oft and long repine 
That we could only meet by stealth.

VIII

'For lovers there are many eyes,
And such there were on us; the devil
On such occasions should be civil -
The devil! - I'm loth to do him wrong,
It might be some untoward saint, 
Who would not be at rest too long,
But to his pious bile gave vent -
But one fair night, some lurking spies 
Surprised and seized us both. 
The Count was som...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...
As when a gryphon through the wilderness 
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale, 
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth 
Had from his wakeful custody purloined 
The guarded gold; so eagerly the Fiend 
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, 
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, 
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. 
At length a universal hubbub wild 
Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused, 
Borne through the holl...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...o pole, traversing each colure; 
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse 
From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth 
Found unsuspected way. There was a place, 
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, 
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, 
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part 
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life: 
In with the river sunk, and with it rose 
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought 
Where to lie hid; sea he had searche...Read more of this...

by Wyatt, Sir Thomas
...if she might keep herself in health, 
To live a lady while her life doth last. 
And to the door now is she come by stealth, 
And with her foot anon she scrapeth full fast. 
The other for fear durst not well scarce appear, 
Of every noise so was the wretch aghast. 
"Peace," quoth the town mouse, "why speakest thou so loud?" 
And by the hand she took her fair and well. 
"Welcome," quoth she, "my sister, by the rood." 
She feasted her that joy is was to tell...Read more of this...

by Schwartz, Delmore
...into sensation and satiation.
The handsome wolf spider moves suddenly freely and relies
Upon lightning suddenness, stealth and surprise,
Possessing accurate eyes, pouncing upon his victim with the
 speed of surmise.

Courtship is dangerous: there are just as many elaborate 
 and endless techniques and varieties
As characterize the wooing of more analytic, more 
 introspective beings: Sometimes the male
Arrives with the gift of a freshly caught fly.
Sometimes he t...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...der, flaming with Brand wine,
Should raging hold his Linstock to the Mine?
While, with feign'd Treaties, they invade by stealth
Our sore new circumcised Common wealth.
Yet of his vain Attempt no more he sees
Then of Case-Butter shot and Bullet-Cheese.
And the torn Navy stagger'd with him home,
While the Sea laught it self into a foam,
'Tis true since that (as fortune kindly sports,)
A wholesome Danger drove us to our ports.
While half their banish'd keels the Temp...Read more of this...

by Aiken, Conrad
...e whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,
Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon
On a night in June . . .
She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;
She dances in dreams over white-waved water;
Her body is white and fragrant and cool,
Magnolia petals that float on a white-starred pool . . .
I have dreamed of her, dreaming for many nights
Of a broken music and golden lights,
Of broken webs ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...nces, that, to take his life,
     Waited but signal from a guide,
     So late dishonored and defied.
     Ever, by stealth, his eye sought round
     The vanished guardians of the ground,
     And stir'd from copse and heather deep
     Fancy saw spear and broadsword peep,
     And in the plover's shrilly strain
     The signal whistle heard again.
     Nor breathed he free till far behind
     The pass was left; for then they wind
     Along a wide and level gre...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...e depths of the wood the landscape suddenly leaves me
And a serpentine path guides up my footsteps on high.
Only by stealth can the light through the leafy trellis of branches
Sparingly pierce, and the blue smilingly peeps through the boughs,
But in a moment the veil is rent, and the opening forest
Suddenly gives back the day's glittering brightness to me!
Boundlessly seems the distance before my gaze to be stretching,
And in a purple-tinged hill terminates sweetly the wo...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...eams that run to mud; 
The ruined health, the wasted wealth, 
In our mad cities by the seas, 
The black race suicide by stealth, 
The starved and murdered industries! 

You bid me make a farce of day, 
And make a mockery of death; 
While not five thousand miles away 
The yellow millions pant for breath! 
But heed me now, nor ask me this – 
Lest you too late should wake to find 
That hopeless patriotism is 
The strongest passion in mankind! 

You'd think the seer sees, perhaps...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...bling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my
 shoulders, 
Put me down, and depart on your way. 

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial, 
Or back of a rock, in the open air, 
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not—nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) 
But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles
 around,
 approach unawares, 
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on t...Read more of this...

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things