Famous Surrounds Poems by Famous Poets

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

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In the Morning of Life

by Thomas Moore
 In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown, 
And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin, 
When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own, 
And the light that surrounds us is all from within; 
Oh 'tis not, believe me, in that happy time 
We can love, as in hours of less transport we may;...Read more of this...

Light

by John Milton
 HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, 
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam 
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, 
Bright effluence of bright essence increate. 
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, 
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun, 
Before the Heavens...Read more of this...

Backdropp Addresses Cowboy

by Margaret Atwood
 Starspangled cowboy 
sauntering out of the almost-
silly West, on your face 
a porcelain grin, 
tugging a papier-mache cactus 
on wheels behind you with a string, 


you are innocent as a bathtub
full of bullets.


Your righteous eyes, your laconic 
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains: 
as you move, the air in front of you 
blossoms with targets


and you leave behind you a...Read more of this...

To Mystics

by Friedrich von Schiller
 That is the only true secret, which in the presence of all men
Lies, and surrounds thee for ay, but which is witnessed by none....Read more of this...

Bellinglise

by Alan Seeger
 Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds 
The head of a green valley that I know, 
Spread the fair gardens and ancestral grounds 
Of Bellinglise, the beautiful chateau. 
Through shady groves and fields of unmown grass, 
It was my joy to come at dusk and see, 
Filling a little pond's untroubled glass, 
Its antique towers and mouldering masonry. 
Oh,...Read more of this...

Music

by A S J Tessimond
 This shape without space,
This pattern without stuff,
This stream without dimension
Surrounds us, flows through us,
But leaves no mark.

This message without meaning,
These tears without eyes
This laughter without lips
Speaks to us but does not
Disclose its clue.

These waves without sea
Surge over us, smooth us.
These hands without fingers
Close-hold us, caress us.
These wings without birds
Strong-lift us, would carry us
If only the one thread broke....Read more of this...

Anchored

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
If thro' the sea of night which here surrounds me,
I could swim out beyond the farthest star,
Break every barrier of circumstance that bounds me,
And greet the Sun of sweeter life afar,
Tho' near you there is passion, grief, and sorrow,
And out there rest and joy and peace and all,
I should renounce that beckoning for to-morrow,
I could not choose to go beyond...Read more of this...

Hymn on the Morning of Christs Nativity

by John Milton
 IT was the Winter wilde, 
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
 All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; 
Nature in aw to him 
Had doff't her gawdy trim, 
 With her great Master so to sympathize: 
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour. 

Only with speeches fair 
She woo's the gentle Air...Read more of this...

Girls Lament

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 In the years when we were
all children, this inclining
to be alone so much was gentle;
others' time passed fighting,
and one had one's faction,
one's near, one's far-off place,
a path, an animal, a picture.

And I still imagined, that life
would always keep providing
for one to dwell on things within,
Am I within myself not in what's greatest?
Shall what's mine no longer soothe
and understand me...Read more of this...

Under Cover of Night

by Robert Desnos
 To slip into your shadow under cover of night.
To follow your footsteps, your shadow at the window.
That shadow at the window is you and no one else;
it's you.
Do not open that window behind whose curtains you're moving.
Shut your eyes.
I'd like to shut them with my lips.
But the window opens and the breeze, the breeze
which strangely balances flame and flag...Read more of this...

The Stranger

by Aleksandr Blok
 The restaurants on hot spring evenings
Lie under a dense and savage air.
Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers
Contaminate the thoroughfare. 
Above the dusty lanes of suburbia
Above the tedium of bungalows
A pretzel sign begilds a bakery
And children screech fortissimo. 

And every evening beyond the barriers
Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm
Go strolling beside the drainage ditches -- 
A tilted derby and...Read more of this...

Modern Love XXIV: The Misery Is Greater

by George Meredith
 The misery is greater, as I live! 
To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense, 
That she does penance now for no offence, 
Save against Love. The less can I forgive! 
The less can I forgive, though I adore 
That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds 
Her footsteps; and the low vibrating sounds 
That come on me, as...Read more of this...

Psalm 96

by Isaac Watts
 v.1,10ff 
C. M.
Christ's first and second coming.

Sing to the Lord, ye distant lands,
Ye tribes of every tongue;
His new-discovered grace demands
A new and nobler song.

Say to the nations, Jesus reigns,
God's own almighty Son;
His power the sinking world sustains,
And grace surrounds his throne.

Let heav'n proclaim the joyful day,
Joy through the earth be seen;
Let cities shine in bright array,
And fields in cheerful...Read more of this...

Love Is Glorious

by Ehsan Sehgal
"Love is glorious feeling, it surrounds all senses and dominates those, beloved is always one and that is the part of your heart and soul." 
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

All Thats Not Love . .

by Alan Seeger
 All that's not love is the dearth of my days, 
The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit, 
The temple in times without prayer, without praise, 
The altar unset and the candle unlit. 


Let me survive not the lovable sway 
Of early desire, nor see when it goes 
The courts of Life's abbey in ivied decay, 
Whence sometime sweet...Read more of this...

The Poor Mans Lamb

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares, 
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs: 
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns, 
Where unattended Incense faintly burns: 
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express, 
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess. 
Heedless of all their Censures He retires, 
And in his Palace feeds his secret...Read more of this...

In Memory of Sigmund Freud

by Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden
When there are so many we shall have to mourn,when grief has been made so public, and exposedto the critique of a whole epochthe frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they dieamong us, those who were doing us some good,who knew it was never enough buthoped to improve a little by living....Read more of this...

The Mores

by John Clare
 Far spread the moorey ground a level scene
Bespread with rush and one eternal green
That never felt the rage of blundering plough
Though centurys wreathed spring's blossoms on its brow
Still meeting plains that stretched them far away
In uncheckt shadows of green brown, and grey
Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
Nor fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect of the following...Read more of this...

Ignorance

by Philip Larkin
 Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.

Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,

Even to wear...Read more of this...

The house where I was born (08)

by Yves Bonnefoy
 I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born,
Exactly as it was and nothing more.
The same small dining room whose window
Gives onto a peach tree that never grows.
A man and a woman are seated
At this window, facing one another,
They are talking, for once. And the child
Sees them from the end of the garden, watches them,
He knows...Read more of this...

The Hymn

by John Milton
 I

It was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Had doff't her gawdy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

II

Only with speeches fair
She woo'd the gentle Air
To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,
And on her naked...Read more of this...

Always For The First Time

by Andre Breton
 Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house
It is there that from one second to the next
In the inviolate darkness
I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring
The one and only rift
In the facade and in my heart
The...Read more of this...

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