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Famous Translucent Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Kilmer, Joyce
...t is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite like it,
For the blueness is not transparent,
Only translucent.
Her soul's light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.
It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, infantile, wise
And noble.
She wears, Monsignore, a blue garment,
Made in the manner of the Japanese.
It is very blue --
I think that her eyes have made it more blue,
Sweetly staining it
As the pressure of her body ha...Read more of this...



by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...r noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
Images all the woven boughs above,
And each depending leaf, and every speck 
Of azure sky darting between their chasms;
Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star,
Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
Unconsci...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ish.
Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,
The light rippling over them
In steel-bright tremors.
Outspread translucent fins
Flute, fold, and relapse;
The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles
In scarcely tarnished twinklings.
Curving of spotted spines,
Slow up-shifts,
Lazy convolutions:
Then a sudden swift straightening
And darting below:
Oblique grey shadows
Athwart a pale casement.
Roped and curled,
Green man-eating eels
Slumber in undulate ...Read more of this...

by Clampitt, Amy
...adén and Gallo, lapis
by way of (no getting around it,
I'm afraid) Phillips'
Milk of Magnesia, with now and then a rare
translucent turquoise or blurred amethyst
of no known origin.
 The process
goes on forever: they came from sand,
they go back to gravel, 
along with treasuries
of Murano, the buttressed
astonishments of Chartres,
which even now are readying
for being turned over and over as gravely
and gradually as an intellect
engaged in the hazardous
redefinition of st...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...e power of some adjuring verse.


SONG.

 Sabrina fair,
 Listen where thou art sitting
 Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
 In twisted braids of lilies knitting
 The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
 Listen for dear honour's sake,
 Goddess of the silver lake,
 Listen and save!

Listen, and appear to us,
In name of great Oceanus.
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majestic pace;
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wi...Read more of this...



by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...the snares of nature's dance;
And the lustre and the grace
Which fascinate each human heart,
Beaming from another part,
Translucent through the mortal covers,
Is the Dæmon's form and face.
To and fro the Genius hies,
A gleam which plays and hovers
Over the maiden's head,
And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.

Unknown, — albeit lying near, —
To men the path to the Dæmon sphere,
And they that swiftly come and go,
Leave no track on the heavenly snow.
Sometimes th...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...om' Comus' 
iii. Sabrina 

The Spirit sings: SABRINA fair 
 Listen where thou art sitting 
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave, 
 In twisted braids of Lillies knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair, 
 Listen for dear honour's sake, 
 Goddess of the silver lake, 
 Listen and save! 

Listen and appear to us, 
In name of great Oceanus, 
By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace, 
And Tethys grave majestick pace, 
By hoary Nereus wrincled look, 
And the Carpathi...Read more of this...

by Pound, Ezra
...y be writ against my name; 
This for an instant and the flame is gone.

'Tis as in midmost us there glows a sphere 
Translucent, molten gold, that is the "I" 
And into this some form projects itself: 
Christus, or John, or eke the Florentine; 
And as the clear space is not if a form's 
Imposed thereon, 
So cease we from all being for the time, 
And these, the Masters of the Soul, live on....Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...lumsy legs, but he can wheel it the better with his wings. -- 

Let Hamul rejoice with the Crystal, who is pure and translucent. 

Let Ziphion rejoice with the Tit-Lark who is a groundling, but he raises the spirits. 

Let Mibzar rejoice with the Cadess, as is their number, so are their names, blessed be the Lord Jesus for them all. 

Let Jubal rejoice with Cascilia, the woman and the slow-worm praise the name of the Lord. 

Let Arodi rejoice with the Roys...Read more of this...

by Belloc, Hilaire
...n along the hem; 
She has seven silver veils 
With cracked bells on them.

She is tired of all these-- 
Grey gauze, translucent lawn; 
The broad cloak of Herakles. 
Is tangled flame and fawn.

Water and light are wearing thin: 
She has drawn above her head 
The warm enormous lion skin 
Rough red and gold....Read more of this...

by Neruda, Pablo
...he nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.

In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.

And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receiv...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...arth's solid base, huge promontories bore; 
Curb'd OCEAN roar'd, clasp'd by the rocky shore; 
And midst metallic fires, translucent rivers ran. 

All nature own'd th'OMNIPOTENT's command! 
Luxuriant blessings deck'd the vast domain; 
HE bade the budding branch expand; 
And from the teeming ground call'd forth the cherish'd grain; 
Salubrious springs from flinty caverns drew; 
Enamell'd verdure o'er the landscape threw; 
HE taught the scaly host to glide 
Sportive, amidst ...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...tain-side.

II.

River and bridge and street and square
Lay mine, as much at my beck and call,
Through the live translucent bath of air,
As the sights in a magic crystal ball.
And of all I saw and of all I praised,
The most to praise and the best to see
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised:
But why did it more than startle me?

III.

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours,
Could you play me false who loved you so?
Some slights if a certain heart endures
Ye...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...els your braggart fears! I sing your 
 form at last
behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress
 of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered
 cabinets and baths of lathe oil,
My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot 
 cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-
 sphere,
I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums
 underground on soundless thrones and beds of
 lead
O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent 
 through h...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...oon his deep and sunny hair,
In this alone less beautiful,
Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.
The blood in his translucent veins
Beat, not like animal life, but love
Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
When life had failed, and all its pains;
And sudden sleep would seize him oft
Like death, so calm,--but that a tear,
His pointed eye-lashes between, 
Would gather in the light serene
Of smiles whose lustre bright and soft
Beneath lay undulating there.
His breath...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ee from the cool Crystalline stream.

Sam. Where ever fountain or fresh current flow'd
Against the Eastern ray, translucent, pure,
With touch aetherial of Heav'ns fiery rod
I drank, from the clear milkie juice allaying 
Thirst, and refresht; nor envy'd them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.

Chor. O madness, to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God with these forbid'n made choice to ...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
.... 

If I worship one thing more than another, it shall be the spread of my own body,
 or any part of it. 

Translucent mould of me, it shall be you! 
Shaded ledges and rests, it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter, it shall be you. 

Whatever goes to the tilth of me, it shall be you! 
You my rich blood! Your milky stream, pale strippings of my life. 

Breast that presses against other breasts, it shall be you! 
My brain, it shall be your occult co...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...Waved in old story, luring him away
Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break
Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;

And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,
And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,
Gay tiger-lilies flammulate and pied,
Sometime on pathway borders neatly set,
Now blossom through the brake on either side,
Where heliotrope and weedy mignonette,
With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,
Mingle their incense all to swell the perfum...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...nnoted, fall,
And, at Return of Morning, silver o'er
The Face of Mother-Earth; from every Branch
Depending, tremble the translucent Gems, 
And, quivering, seem to fall away, yet cling,
And sparkle in the Sun, whose rising Eye,
With Fogs bedim'd, portends a beauteous Day.

NOW, giddy Youth, whom headlong Passions fire,
Rouse the wild Game, and stain the guiltless Grove, 
With Violence, and Death; yet call it Sport,
To scatter Ruin thro' the Realms of Love,
And Peace, that ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...make
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:--

A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably;
And around which the solid vapours hoar,
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and, like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed-in with rifts and precipices grey,
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

And, whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the w...Read more of this...

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