Famous Stilly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Dauber

by Robert William Service
 In stilly grove beside the sea
He mingles colours, measures space;
A bronze and breezy man is he,
 Yet peace is in his face.
Behold him stand and longly stare,
Till deft of hand and deep of eye
He captures on a canvas square
 The joy of earth and sky.

Aloof from servitude and strife,
From carking care and greed apart,
Beneath the blue he lives his...Read more of this...

Ralph to Mary

by Amy Levy
 Love, you have led me to the strand,
Here, where the stilly, sunset sea,
Ever receding silently,
Lays bare a shining stretch of sand;

Which, as we tread, in waving line,
Sinks softly 'neath our moving feet;
And looking down our glances meet,
Two mirrored figures--yours and mine.

To-night you found me sad, alone,
Amid the noisy, empty books
And drew me forth with those sweet looks,
And gentle ways...Read more of this...

The Light of Other Days

by Thomas Moore
 OFT, in the stilly night, 
 Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
Fond Memory brings the light 
 Of other days around me: 
 The smiles, the tears 
 Of boyhood's years, 
 The words of love then spoken; 
 The eyes that shone, 
 Now dimm'd and gone, 
 The cheerful hearts now broken! 
Thus, in the stilly...Read more of this...

Divided

by Jean Ingelow
.

An empty sky, a world of heather,
  Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom;
We two among them wading together,
  Shaking out honey, treading perfume.
Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
  Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
  Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
Flusheth the rise with her purple...Read more of this...

The Secret

by Katherine Mansfield
 In the profoundest ocean
There is a rainbow shell,
It is always there, shining most stilly
Under the greatest storm waves
That the old Greek called "ripples of laughter."
As you listen, the rainbow shell
Sings--in the profoundest ocean.
It is always there, singing most silently!...Read more of this...

Me thinks this heart..

by Emily Brontë
 Me thinks this heart should rest awhile
So stilly round the evening falls
The veiled sun sheds no parting smile
Nor mirth nor music wakes my Halls 

I have sat lonely all the day
Watching the drizzly mist descend
And first conceal the hills in grey
And then along the valleys wend 

And I have sat and watched the trees
And the sad flowers how drear...Read more of this...

The Convergence Of The Twain

by Thomas Hardy
 (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

 I
 In a solitude of the sea
 Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

 II

 Steel chambers, late the pyres
 Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

 III

 Over the mirrors meant
 To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls--grotesque, slimed, dumb,...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave  
And spread the roof above them¡ªere he framed 
The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 5 
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down  
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And...Read more of this...

Lines On The Loss Of The Titanic

by Thomas Hardy
 In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared...Read more of this...

Oft in the Stilly Night

by Thomas Moore
 Oft, in the stilly night, 
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm'd and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
Sad memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The...Read more of this...

Recollection of the Arabian Nights

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 
In the silken sail of infancy, 
The tide of time flow'd back with me, 
The forward-flowing tide of time; 
And many a sheeny summer-morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn, 
For it was...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
And spread the roof above them,---ere he framed 
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, 
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, 
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And supplication. For his...Read more of this...

Pucks Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 See you the ferny ride that steals
Into the oak-woods far?
O that was whence they hewed the keels
That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the ivy clings
To Bayham's mouldering walls?
 O there we cast the stout railings
 That stand around St. Paul's.

 See you the dimpled track that runs
 All hollow through the wheat?
 O that was where they hauled...Read more of this...

Freedom And Love

by Thomas Campbell
 How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!
Yet remember, 'Midst our wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.
Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays, when sorest chidden;
Laughs and flies, when press'd...Read more of this...

The End of the Day

by Amy Levy
 To B. T.


Dead-tired, dog-tired, as the vivid day
Fails and slackens and fades away.--
The sky that was so blue before
With sudden clouds is shrouded o'er.
Swiftly, stilly the mists uprise,
Till blurred and grey the landscape lies.

* * * * * * *

All day we have plied the oar; all day
Eager and keen have said our say
On life and death, on love...Read more of this...

The Giant Puffball

by Edmund Blunden
    From what sad star I know not, but I found
    Myself new-born below the coppice rail,
    No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,
    In a soft sward, no cattle might assail.

    And so I gathered mightiness and grew
    With this...Read more of this...

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