Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Utterance Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...oice and doleful look
These words did say:

'In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heard'st a low moaning,
And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair:
And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,
To sh...Read more of this...



by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...he room of fate
And drawing into his light the greeting fire
Of God,—God known in ecstasy of love
Wedding himself to utterance of himself ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ent that afterwards befel?
Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream
That never tongue, although it overteem
With mellow utterance, like a cavern spring,
Could figure out and to conception bring
All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay
Watching the zenith, where the milky way
Among the stars in virgin splendour pours;
And travelling my eye, until the doors
Of heaven appear'd to open for my flight,
I became loth and fearful to alight
From such high soaring by a downward glanc...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...at nature's holy countenance,
Until that grove appear'd, as if perchance,
And then his tongue with sober seemlihed
Gave utterance as he entered: "Ha!" I said,
"King of the butterflies; but by this gloom,
And by old Rhadamanthus' tongue of doom,
This dusk religion, pomp of solitude,
And the Promethean clay by thief endued,
By old Saturnus' forelock, by his head
Shook with eternal palsy, I did wed
Myself to things of light from infancy;
And thus to be cast out, thus lorn to die...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...rain
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again.
And we will talk, until thought's melody
Become too sweet for utterance, and it die
In words, to live again in looks, which dart
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart,
Harmonizing silence without a sound.
Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound,
And our veins beat together; and our lips
With other eloquence than words, eclipse
The soul that burns between them, and the wells
Which boil under our being's i...Read more of this...



by Campbell, Thomas
...dorous scent and harmony,
And gladness to the heart, nerve, ear, and sight:
There, if, O gentle Love! I read aright
The utterance that seal'd thy sacred bond,
'Twas listening to these accents of delight,
She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond
Expression's power to paint, all languishingly fond--

"Flower of my life, so lovely, and so lone!
Whom I would rather in this desert meet,
Scorning, and scorn'd by fortune's power, than own
Her pomp and splendors lavish'd at my feet...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...cliff 
Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base 
Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale-- 
Went on in passionate utterance: 

`Gone--my lord! 
Gone through my sin to slay and to be slain! 
And he forgave me, and I could not speak. 
Farewell? I should have answered his farewell. 
His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, 
My own true lord! how dare I call him mine? 
The shadow of another cleaves to me, 
And makes me one pollution: he, the King, 
Called me...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...and yet be comforted,
Knowing that by the chain causality
All separate existences are wed
Into one supreme whole, whose utterance
Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance

Of Life in most august omnipresence,
Through which the rational intellect would find
In passion its expression, and mere sense,
Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind,
And being joined with it in harmony
More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,

Strike from their several tones ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...organ tone:
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents; O how frail
To that large utterance of the early Gods!
"Saturn, look up!---though wherefore, poor old King?
I have no comfort for thee, no not one:
I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?'
For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth
Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a God;
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
Is emptied of thine...Read more of this...

by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...e oppressor. If some traces of the autocratic pose,the paternal strictness he distrusted, stillclung to his utterance and features,it was a protective coloration for one who'd lived among enemies so long:if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd,to us he is no more a personnow but a whole climate of opinion under whom we conduct our different lives:Like weather he can only hinder or help,the proud can still be proud but find itRead more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...nor seek
To effigy its incorporeal bulk
In little wry-faced images of woe.

I cannot call you back; and I desire
No utterance of my immaterial voice.
I cannot even turn my face this way
Or that, and say, "My face is turned to you";
I know not where you are, I do not know
If Heaven hold you or if earth transmute,
Body and soul, you into earth again;
But this I know:—not for one second's space
Shall I insult my sight with visionings
Such as the credulous crowd so eager-...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...
Though mix'd with terror, senseless as he lay, 
There lived upon his lip the wish to slay; 
Some half-form'd threat in utterance there had died, 
Some imprecation of despairing pride; 
His eye was almost seal'd, but not forsook 
Even in its trance the gladiator's look, 
That oft awake his aspect could disclose, 
And now was fix'd in horrible repose. 
They raise him — bear him: hush! he breathes, he speaks! 
The swarthy blush recolours in his cheeks, 
His lip resumes its ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...nce to view: 
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven 
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd 
Beatitude past utterance; on his right 
The radiant image of his glory sat, 
His only son; on earth he first beheld 
Our two first parents, yet the only two 
Of mankind in the happy garden plac'd 
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love, 
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall'd love, 
In blissful solitude; he then survey'd 
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there 
Coasting the wa...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...Griped in each paw: when, Adam first of men 
To first of women Eve thus moving speech, 
Turned him, all ear to hear new utterance flow. 
Sole partner, and sole part, of all these joys, 
Dearer thyself than all; needs must the Power 
That made us, and for us this ample world, 
Be infinitely good, and of his good 
As liberal and free as infinite; 
That raised us from the dust, and placed us here 
In all this happiness, who at his hand 
Have nothing merited, nor can perform ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...and in face 
Confounded, long they sat, as strucken mute: 
Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed, 
At length gave utterance to these words constrained. 
O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear 
To that false worm, of whomsoever taught 
To counterfeit Man's voice; true in our fall, 
False in our promised rising; since our eyes 
Opened we find indeed, and find we know 
Both good and evil; good lost, and evil got; 
Bad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know; 
Which lea...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...

XIV 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest-- 
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men; a stately speech; 
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use, 
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. 

XV 

He told, that to these waters he had come 
To gather leeches, being old and poor: 
Employment hazardous and wearisome! 
And he had many hardships to en...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...

XIV 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest-- 
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men; a stately speech; 
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use, 
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. 

XV 

He told, that to these waters he had come 
To gather leeches, being old and poor: 
Employment hazardous and wearisome! 
And he had many hardships to en...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...and Christine talked,
This child matured to woman unaware,
The first time left alone. Now dreams once balked
Found utterance. Max thought her very fair.
Beneath her cap her ornaments shone gold,
And purest gold they were. Kurler was rich
And heedful. Her old maiden aunt had died
Whose darling care she was. Now, growing bold,
She asked, had Max a sister? Dropped a stitch
At her own candour. Then she paused and softly sighed.

34
Two years was l...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
..., shot from behind a house,
So, evil falls, and a fool foretells the truth."
"Well," quoth Lord Raoul, with languid utterance,
"'Tis very well -- and thou'rt a foolish fool,
Nay, thou art Folly's perfect witless man,
Stupidity doth madly dote on thee,
And Idiocy doth fight her for thy love,
Yet Silliness doth love thee best of all,
And while they quarrel, snatcheth thee to her
And saith `Ah! 'tis my sweetest No-brains: mine!'
-- And 'tis my mood to-day some ill shall fall...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...t table, 
As far as the incommunicable; 
Taught thee each private sign to raise 
Lit by the supersolar blaze. 
Past utterance, and past belief, 
And part the blasphemy of grief 
The mysteries of Nature's heart; 
And though no Muse can these impart, 
Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast 
And all is clear from east to west. 

"I came to thee as to a friend; 
Dearest, to thee I did not send 
Tutors, but a joyful eye, 
Innocence that matched the sky, 
Lovely locks, ...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Utterance poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things