Famous Turquoise Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Deserted Gipsy's Song: Hillside Camp

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   She is glad to receive your turquoise ring,
         Dear and dark-eyed Lover of mine!
   I, to have given you everything:
         Beauty maddens the soul like Wine.

   "She is proud to have held aloof her charms,
  ...Read more of this...

The Ballad of the Kings Jest

by Rudyard Kipling
 When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And...Read more of this...

Continual Conversation With A Silent Man

by Wallace Stevens
 The old brown hen and the old blue sky,
Between the two we live and die--
The broken cartwheel on the hill.

As if, in the presence of the sea,
We dried our nets and mended sail
And talked of never-ending things,

Of the never-ending storm of will,
One will and many wills, and the wind,
Of many meanings in the leaves,

Brought down to one below the...Read more of this...

The Strayed Reveller

by Matthew Arnold
 1 Faster, faster, 
2 O Circe, Goddess,
3 Let the wild, thronging train 
4 The bright procession 
5 Of eddying forms, 
6 Sweep through my soul! 

7 Thou standest, smiling
8 Down on me! thy right arm,
9 Lean'd up against the column there,
10 Props thy soft cheek;
11 Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
12 The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
13 I held but now. 

14...Read more of this...

Evarra And His Gods

by Rudyard Kipling
 Read here:
This is the story of Evarra -- man --
Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.
 Because the city gave him of her gold,
 Because the caravans brought turquoises,
 Because his life was sheltered by the King,
 So that no man should maim him, none should steal,
 Or break his rest with babble in the streets
 When he...Read more of this...

Les Ballons

by Oscar Wilde
 Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons
Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling,
Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees they...Read more of this...

The Rover

by Robert William Service
 Oh, how good it is to be
Foot-loose and heart-free!
Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky;
Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn;
Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star;
Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, fagot fire;
None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold;
Nature like...Read more of this...

The Ballad of East and West

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the...Read more of this...

The Sacrifice of Er-Heb

by Rudyard Kipling
 Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
Comes westward o'er the peaks to India.

The story of Bisesa, Armod's child, --
A maiden plighted to the Chief in War,
The Man of Sixty Spears, who held the Pass
That leads to Thibet, but to-day is gone
To seek his comfort of the...Read more of this...

Sonnet On Approaching Italy

by Oscar Wilde
 I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,
Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
And when from out the mountain's heart I came
And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
And musing on the marvel of thy fame
I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
The turquoise sky to...Read more of this...

Brass Kaleidoscope

by Dale Harcombe
 My daughter raises the smooth
 brass kaleidoscope
 and watches as coloured glass slivers
 conspire together.
 New worlds create themselves before her eyes.
 Garnet spires flirt with sapphire
 and turquoise.
 Topaz and amethyst meet in harmony,
 a selenic mystery.
 A melody of stars singing a tune only she
 can hear.
 Eclectic patterns shiver and shimmer
 then splinter,
 sparking off at...Read more of this...

The Defective Record

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale

killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.

Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house

on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to . . ....Read more of this...

The Fish

by Marianne Moore
 wade
through black jade.
 Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
 adjusting the ash-heaps;
 opening and shutting itself like

an
injured fan.
 The barnacles which encrust the side
 of the wave, cannot hide
 there for the submerged shafts of the

sun,
split like spun
 glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
 into the crevices—
 in and out, illuminating

the
turquoise sea
 of bodies. The water drives a wedge
...Read more of this...

The Chinese Nightingale

by Vachel Lindsay
 A Song in Chinese Tapestries


"How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said,
"San Francisco sleeps as the dead—
Ended license, lust and play:
Why do you iron the night away?
Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,
With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round.
While the monster shadows glower and creep,
What can be better for man than sleep?"

"I will tell you...Read more of this...

El Poeta Y La Ilusion (The Poet And The Illusion)

by Delmira Agustini
SpanishLa princesita hipsipilo, la vibrátil filigrana,—Princesita ojos turquesas esculpida en porcelana—Llamó una noche a mi puerta con sus manitas de lis.Vibró el cristal de su voz como una flauta galana.            —Yo sé que tu vida es gris.Yo tengo el alma de rosa, frescuras de flor temprana,            Vengo de un bello país            A ser tu musa y tu hermana!—Un abrazo de alabastro…luego en el...Read more of this...

The Ancient World

by Mark Doty
 Today the Masons are auctioning 
their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans, 
gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes 
labeled inside the collar "Potentate" 
and "Vizier." Here their chairs, blazoned 
with the Masons' sign, huddled 
like convalescents, lean against one another 

on the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles 
the hierophants carried in parades; 
here's a splendid golden staff...Read more of this...

Colors

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 (For D. M. C.) 

The little man with the vague beard and guise 
Pulled at the wicket. "Come inside!" he said, 
"I'll show you all we've got now -- it was size 
You wanted? -- oh, dry colors! Well" -- he led 
To a dim alley lined with musty bins, 
And pulled one fiercely. Violent and bold 
A sudden...Read more of this...

The Fairy Goldsmith

by Elinor Wylie
 Here's a wonderful thing, 
A humming-bird's wing 
In hammered gold, 
And store well chosen 
Of snowflakes frozen 
In crystal cold.

Black onyx cherries 
And mistletoe berries 
Of chrysoprase, 
Jade buds, tight shut, 
All carven and cut 
In intricate ways.

Here, if you please 
Are little gilt bees 
In amber drops 
Which look like honey, 
Translucent and sunny, 
From clover-tops.

Here's an elfin...Read more of this...

Portrait of a Baby

by Stephen Vincent Benet
 He lay within a warm, soft world 
Of motion. Colors bloomed and fled, 
Maroon and turquoise, saffron, red, 
Wave upon wave that broke and whirled 
To vanish in the grey-green gloom, 
Perspectiveless and shadowy. 
A bulging world that had no walls, 
A flowing world, most like the sea, 
Compassing all infinity 
Within a shapeless, ebbing room, 
An endless tide...Read more of this...

Strayed Reveller The

by Matthew Arnold
 The Youth

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild, thronging train
The bright procession
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling
Down on me! thy right arm,
Lean'd up against the column there,
Props thy soft cheek;
Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
I held but now.
Is it, then, evening
So soon? I see, the night-dews,
Cluster'd in thick beads, dim
The agate brooch-stones
On thy white shoulder;
The cool...Read more of this...

Dance Figure

by Ezra Pound
 For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

Dark-eyed, 
O woman of my dreams, 
Ivory sandalled, 
There is none like thee among the dancers, 
None with swift feet.
I have not found thee in the tents, 
In the broken darkness.
I have not found thee at the well-head
Among the women with pitchers.
Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark; 
Thy face...Read more of this...

XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)

by Pablo Neruda
 You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.

Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of...Read more of this...

Beach Glass

by Amy Clampitt
 While you walk the water's edge,
turning over concepts
I can't envision, the honking buoy
serves notice that at any time
the wind may change,
the reef-bell clatters
its treble monotone, deaf as Cassandra
to any note but warning. The ocean,
cumbered by no business more urgent 
than keeping open old accounts
that never balanced,
goes on shuffling its millenniums
of quartz, granite, and basalt.
 It behaves
toward the permutations of...Read more of this...

Mortua Est

by Mihai Eminescu
Two candles, tall sentry, beside an earth mound, 
A dream with wings broken that trail to the ground,  
Loud flung from the belfry calamitous chime... 
'Tis thus that you passed o'er the bound'ries of time. 

Gone by are the hours when the heavens entire 
Flowed rivers of milk and grew flowers of fire, 
When the thunderous clouds were but...Read more of this...

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