Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Sunning Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Wilbur, Richard
...Securely sunning in a forest glade, 
A mild, well-meaning snake
Approved the adaptations he had made
For safety’s sake.

He liked the skin he had—
Its mottled camouflage, its look of mail,
And was content that he had thought to add
A rattling tail.


The tail was not for drumming up a fight;
No, nothing of the sort.
And he would only use his poisoned bite...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...r, the dances are done, 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 
Queen lily and rose in one; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 
From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear; 
She is coming, my life, my fate; 
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" 
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" 
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;" 
And the lily whisp...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
..., the dances are done, 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 
 Queen lily and rose in one; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
 To the flowers, and be their sun. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 
 From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear; 
 She is coming, my life, my fate; 
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" 
 And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" 
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;" 
 And the lily ...Read more of this...

by Bogan, Louise
...She has attained the permanence 
She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. 
Untended stalks blow over her 
Even and swift, like young men running. 

Always in the heart she loved 
Others had lived, -- she heard their laughter. 
She lies where none has lain before, 
Where certainly none will follow after....Read more of this...

by Dunn, Stephen
...a kind
of night, unmetaphysical, cool as a skeptic's
final sentence. What this scene needs
is a nude absentmindedly sunning herself
on a large rock, thinks the man fed up
with nature, or perhaps a lost tiger,
the maximum amount of wildness a landscape
can bear, but the man knows and fears
his history of tampering with everything,
and besides to anyone who might see him
he's just a figure in a clearing
in a forest in a universe
that is as random as desire itself,
his desir...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...dances are done, 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 55 
Queen lily and rose in one; 
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls. 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 
From the passion-flower at the gate. 60 
She is coming, my dove, my dear; 
She is coming, my life, my fate; 
The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near;' 
And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;' 
The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;' 65 ...Read more of this...

by Justice, Donald
...We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come memory, let us seek them there in the shadows....Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
....
It's a little cornucopia.
It unclaps, brown as a leaf, and loud,

Settles in the elm, and is easy.
It was sunning in the narcissi.
I trespass stupidly. Let be, let be....Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Til past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
Any pays you back in cream!

Her lawn looks like ...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Til past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
Any pays you back in cream!

Her lawn looks like ...Read more of this...

by Levertov, Denise
...I was welcomed here—clear gold
of late summer, of opening autumn, 
the dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree, 
the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow 
tinted apricot as she looked west, 
Tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun 
forever rising and setting. 
Now I am given 
a taste of the grey foretold by all and sundry, 
a grey both heavy and chill. I've boasted I would not care, 
I'm London-born.Read more of this...

by Burnside, John
...g home under the light 
of a summer's morning
to offer the gift of a corpse,

you carry home the snake you thought 
was sunning itself on a rock
at the river's edge: 
sun-fretted, gracile,
it shimmies and sways in your hands 
like a muscle of light,
and you gather it up like a braid 
for my admiration. 

I can't shake the old wife's tale 
that snakes never die,
they hang in a seamless dream 
of frogskin and water,
preserving a ribbon of heat 
in a bone or a vein,
a cold-b...Read more of this...

by Blunden, Edmund
...road,
And who would wish surer delight for the eye
Than to see pairing goldfinches gleaming abroad
Or yellowhammers sunning on paling and sty?

And stocks in the almswomen's garden were blown,
With rich Easter roses each side of the door;
The lazy white owls in the glade cool and lone
Paid calls on their cousins in the elm's chambered core.

This peace, then, and happiness thronged me around.
Nor could I go burdened with grief, but made merry
Till I came ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...on reared on high,--
His fear I could not pacify,
For, coiled up in a circle, lo!
There lay the fierce and hideous foe,
Sunning himself upon the ground.
Straight at him rushed each nimble hound;
Yet thence they turned, dismayed and fast,
When he his gaping jaws op'd wide,
Vomited forth his poisonous blast,
And like the howling jackal cried."

"But soon their courage I restored;
They seized with rage the foe abhorred,
While I against the beast's loins threw
My spear wi...Read more of this...

by de la Mare, Walter
...
Went softly down, until
She stood in the half-opened door,
And peeped. But strange to say
Where Death just now had sunning sat
Only a shadow lay:
Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl,
And the small sun behind,
Had with its shadow in the dust
Called sleepy Death to mind.
But most she thought how strange it was
Two keys that he should bear,
And that, when beckoning, he should wag
The littlest in the air....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sunning poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things