Famous This Night Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The First Walpurgis-night

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 A DRUID.


 SWEET smiles the May!

 The forest gay

From frost and ice is freed;

 No snow is found,

 Glad songs resound

Across the verdant mead.

 Upon the height

 The snow lies light,

Yet thither now we go,
There to extol our Father's name,

Whom we for ages know.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;

Thus pure the heart will grow.

THE DRUIDS.

Amid the smoke shall...Read more of this...

The Truce of Night

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Lo, it is dark,
Save for the crystal spark
Of a virgin star o'er the purpling lea,
Or the fine, keen, silvery grace of a young
Moon that is hung
O'er the priest-like firs by the sea;
Lo, it is still,
Save for the wind of the hill,
And the luring, primeval sounds that fill
The moist and scented air­
'Tis the truce o' night, away with unrest and...Read more of this...

All night in deep bewilderment I fret,

by Omar Khayyam
All night in deep bewilderment I fret,
With tear-drops big as pearls my breast is wet;
I cannot fill my cranium with wine,
How can it hold wine, when 'tis thus upset?...Read more of this...

Good-night

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The lark is silent in his nest,
The breeze is sighing in its flight,
Sleep, Love, and peaceful be thy rest.
[Pg 62]Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
Sweet dreams attend thee in thy sleep,
To soothe thy rest till morning's light,
And angels round thee vigil keep.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
Sleep well, my love, on night's dark breast,
And ease thy soul with slumber bright;
Be...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 105. To-night ungatherd let us leave

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 To-night ungather'd let us leave 
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
Our father's dust is left alone
And silent under other snows:
There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.
No more shall wayward grief abuse
The genial hour with mask and mime;
For change of place, like growth of time,
Has...Read more of this...

Night

by Sidney Lanier
 The sun descending in the west.
The evening star does shine.
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine,
The moon like a flower,
In heavens high bower;
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have took delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On...Read more of this...

The Night Piece to Julia

by Robert Herrick
 Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mis-light thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there's none to affright thee.

Let not the dark thee cumber;
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee...Read more of this...

Night (O you whose countenance)

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Night. O you whose countenance, dissolved
in deepness, hovers above my face.
You who are the heaviest counterweight
to my astounding contemplation.

Night, that trembles as reflected in my eyes,
but in itself strong;
inexhaustible creation, dominant,
enduring beyond the earth's endurance;

Night, full of newly created stars that leave
trails of fire streaming from their seams
as they soar in inaudible adventure
through interstellar space:

how, overshadowed by your all-embracing...Read more of this...

On the Night of a Friends Wedding

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 If ever I am old, and all alone, 
I shall have killed one grief, at any rate; 
For then, thank God, I shall not have to wait 
Much longer for the sheaves that I have sown. 
The devil only knows what I have done,
But here I am, and here are six or eight 
Good friends, who most ingenuously prate...Read more of this...

White Night

by Anna Akhmatova
 There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say ‘ She asked for storms.’ The entire
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.

That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,
soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving mI haven't locked the door, 
Nor lit the candles,...Read more of this...

Thou Leanest to the Shell of Night

by James Joyce
 Thou leanest to the shell of night, 
Dear lady, a divining ear. 
In that soft choiring of delight 
What sound hath made thy heart to fear? 
Seemed it of rivers rushing forth 
From the grey deserts of the north? 

That mood of thine 
Is his, if thou but scan it well, 
Who a mad tale bequeaths to us 
At...Read more of this...

Twell De Night Is Pas'

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
All de night long twell de moon goes down,
Lovin' I set at huh feet,
Den fu' de long jou'ney back f'om de town,
Ha'd, but de dreams mek it sweet.
All de night long twell de break of de day,
Dreamin' agin in my sleep,
Mandy comes drivin' my sorrers away,
Axin' me, "Wha' fu' you weep?"
All de day long twell de sun goes down,
Smilin', I...Read more of this...

Some say goodnight -- at night --

by Emily Dickinson
 Some say goodnight -- at night --
I say goodnight by day --
Good-bye -- the Going utter me --
Goodnight, I still reply --

For parting, that is night,
And presence, simply dawn --
Itself, the purple on the height
Denominated morn....Read more of this...

At the Mid Hour of Night

by Thomas Moore
 At the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly 
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye; 
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air, 
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there, 
And tell me our love is remember'd, even in...Read more of this...

144. A Winter Night

by Robert Burns
 WHEN biting Boreas, fell and dour,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
 Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
 Or whirling drift:


Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,
 Wild-eddying swirl;
Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
 Down headlong hurl:


List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I...Read more of this...

A Night-Piece By Millet

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Wind and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking
Mirth of moonlight where the storm leaves free
Heaven awhile, for all the wrath of waking
Wind and sea.

Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee,
Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud's o'ertaking
Fast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee.

One blown sail beneath her, hardly making
Forth, wild-winged for harbourage yet to be,
Strives and leaps...Read more of this...

Awake at night

by Matsuo Basho
 Awake at night--
the sound of the water jar
 cracking in the cold....Read more of this...

To the Night

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
SWIFTLY walk over the western wave  
Spirit of Night! 
Out of the misty eastern cave 
Where all the long and lone daylight  
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear 5 
Which make thee terrible and dear ¡ª 
Swift be thy flight! 

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray  
Star-inwrought; 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day...Read more of this...

The Heart of Night

by Bliss Carman
 When all the stars are sown 
Across the night-blue space, 
With the immense unknown, 
In silence face to face. 
We stand in speechless awe 
While Beauty marches by, 
And wonder at the Law 
Which wears such majesty. 
How small a thing is man 
In all that world-sown vast, 
That he should hope or plan 
Or dream his dream could...Read more of this...

Rapids at Night

by Duncan Campbell Scott
 Here at the roots of the mountains,
Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks,
The rapids charge the ravine:
A little light, cast by foam under starlight,
Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches:
Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle,
Immense and mournful.
Far above curves the great dome of darkness
Drawn with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets.
Deep at...Read more of this...

Who led thee here this night, thus given up to wine?

by Omar Khayyam
Who led thee here this night, thus given up to wine?
Who, indeed, raising the veil which hid thee, has been
able to lead thee here? Who, finally, brought thee as
rapidly as the wind which fans the fire that still burned
in thy absence?...Read more of this...

Night

by Sidney Lanier
 BURNING our hearts out with longing
 The daylight passed:
Millions and millions together,
 The stars at last!


Purple the woods where the dewdrops,
 Pearly and grey,
Wash in the cool from our faces
 The flame of day.


Glory and shadow grow one in
 The hazel wood:
Laughter and peace in the stillness
 Together brood.


Hopes all unearthly are thronging
 In hearts of earth:
Tongues of the...Read more of this...

Saturday Night in the Parthenon

by Kenneth Patchen
 Tiny green birds skate over the surface of the room.
A naked girl prepares a basin with steaming water,
And in the corner away from the hearth, the red wheels
Of an up-ended chariot slowly turn.
After a long moment, the door to the other world opens
And the golden figure of a man appears. He stands
Ruddy as a salmon beside the niche where...Read more of this...

Night-Scented Stock

by Katherine Mansfield
 White, white in the milky night
The moon danced over a tree.
"Wouldn't it be lovely to swim in the lake!"
Someone whispered to me.

"Oh, do-do-do!" cooed someone else,
And clasped her hands to her chin.
"I should so love to see the white bodies--
All the white bodies jump in!"

The big dark house hid secretly
Behind the magnolia and the spreading pear-tree;
But there was a...Read more of this...

Acquainted With the Night

by Robert Frost
 I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over...Read more of this...

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