Famous Vale Poems by Famous Poets

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

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To A Cloud

by William Cullen Bryant
 Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
Swimming in the pure quiet air!
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below
Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow;
Where, midst their labour, pause the reaper train
As cool it comes along the grain.
Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee
In thy calm way o'er land and sea:
To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look
On...Read more of this...

Gwin King of Norway

by William Blake
 Come, kings, and listen to my song:
When Gwin, the son of Nore,
Over the nations of the North
His cruel sceptre bore;
The nobles of the land did feed
Upon the hungry poor;
They tear the poor man's lamb, and drive
The needy from their door.

`The land is desolate; our wives
And children cry for bread;
Arise, and pull the tyrant down!
Let Gwin be humbl?d!'

Gordred the giant...Read more of this...

In a Vale

by Robert Frost
 WHEN I was young, we dwelt in a vale
 By a misty fen that rang all night,
And thus it was the maidens pale
I knew so well, whose garments trail
 Across the reeds to a window light.

The fen had every kind of bloom,
 And for every kind there was a face,
And a voice that has sounded in my room
Across the...Read more of this...

About The Sheltered Garden Ground

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 ABOUT the sheltered garden ground
The trees stand strangely still.
The vale ne'er seemed so deep before,
Nor yet so high the hill.

An awful sense of quietness,
A fulness of repose,
Breathes from the dewy garden-lawns,
The silent garden rows.

As the hoof-beats of a troop of horse
Heard far across a plain,
A nearer knowledge of great thoughts
Thrills vaguely through my brain.

I lean my head upon my...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CXIII. Pommi ove 'l sol occide i fiori e l' erba. HIS INVINCIBLE CONSTANCY.  Place me where herb and flower the sun has dried,Or where numb winter's grasp holds sterner sway:Place me where Phœbus sheds a temperate ray,Where first he glows, where rests at eventide.Place me in lowly state, in...Read more of this...

Second Ode to the Nightingale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 BLEST be thy song, sweet NIGHTINGALE, 
Lorn minstrel of the lonely vale ! 
Where oft I've heard thy dulcet strain 
In mournful melody complain; 
When in the POPLAR'S trembling shade, 
At Evening's purple hour I've stray'd, 
While many a silken folded flow'r 
Wept on its couch of Gossamer, 
And many a time in pensive mood 
Upon the upland mead...Read more of this...

Ode to the Nightingale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 SWEET BIRD OF SORROW! ­why complain 
In such soft melody of Song, 
That ECHO, am'rous of thy Strain, 
The ling'ring cadence doth prolong? 
Ah! tell me, tell me, why, 
Thy dulcet Notes ascend the sky. 
Or on the filmy vapours glide 
Along the misty moutain's side? 
And wherefore dost Thou love to dwell, 
In the dark wood and moss-grown...Read more of this...

The Reply to Time

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O TIME, forgive the mournful song 
That on thy pinions stole along, 
When the rude hand of pain severe 
Chas'd down my cheek the burning tear; 
When sorrow chill'd each warm desire 
That kindles FANCY'S lambent fire; 
When HOPE, by fost'ring FRIENDSHIP rear'd, 
A phantom of the brain appear'd; 
Forgive the song, devoid of art, 
That stole spontaneous from...Read more of this...

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,...Read more of this...

The Lacking Sense Scene.--A sad-coloured landscape Waddon Vale

by Thomas Hardy
 I 

"O Time, whence comes the Mother's moody look amid her labours, 
 As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves? 
 Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors, 
With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face, 
 As of angel fallen from grace?" 

II 

- "Her look is but her...Read more of this...

The Vale To You, To Me The Heights

by Victor Hugo
 A FABLE. 
 
 {Bk. III. vi., October, 1846.} 


 A lion camped beside a spring, where came the Bird 
 Of Jove to drink: 
 When, haply, sought two kings, without their courtier herd, 
 The moistened brink, 
 Beneath the palm—they always tempt pugnacious hands— 
 Both travel-sore; 
 But quickly, on the recognition, out flew brands...Read more of this...

The Shroud of Color

by Countee Cullen
 "Lord, being dark," I said, "I cannot bear
The further touch of earth, the scented air;
Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair
My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt
Beneath my brother's heel; there is a hurt
In all the simple joys which to a child
Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled
By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails
To see; too great...Read more of this...

Morning

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 O'ER fallow plains and fertile meads,
AURORA lifts the torch of day;
The shad'wy brow of Night recedes,
Cold dew-drops fall from every spray;
Now o'er the thistle's rugged head,
Thin veils of filmy vapour fly,
On ev'ry violet's perfum'd bed
The sparkling gems of Nature lie. 

The hill's tall brow is crown'd with gold,
The Milk-maid trills her jocund lay,
The Shepherd-boy unpens his fold,
The Lambs along...Read more of this...

Ode to Della Crusca

by Mary Darby Robinson
 ENLIGHTEN'D Patron of the sacred Lyre?
Whose ever-varying, ever-witching song
Revibrates on the heart
With magic thrilling touch,
Till ev'ry nerve with quiv'ring throb divine,
In madd'ning tumults, owns thy wondrous pow'r;
For well thy dulcet notes
Can wind the mazy song,
In labyrinth of wild fantastic form;
Or with empassion'd pathos woo the soul
With sounds more sweetly mild,
Than SAPPHO's plaint forlorn,
When bending o'er the wave she sung...Read more of this...

Sonnet III: Turn to Yon Vale Beneath

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Turn to yon vale beneath, whose tangled shade
Excludes the blazing torch of noon-day light,
Where sportive Fawns, and dimpled Loves invite,
The bow'r of Pleasure opens to the glade:
Lull'd by soft flutes, on leaves of violets laid,
There witching beauty greets the ravish'd sight,
More gentle than the arbitress of night
In all her silv'ry panoply array'd!
The birds breathe bliss! light zephyrs kiss the...Read more of this...

The Shepherd And The Calm

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Soothing his Passions with a warb'ling Sound, 
A Shepherd-Swain lay stretch'd upon the Ground;
Whilst all were mov'd, who their Attention lent,
Or with the Harmony in Chorus went,
To something less than Joy, yet more than dull Content. 
(Between which two Extreams true Pleasure lies, 
O'er-run by Fools, unreach'd-at by the Wise )
But yet, a fatal Prospect to the Sea
Wou'd often...Read more of this...

Larksong

by Omer Tarin
As in the Vale of Sorrow the cage'd woodlark sings
songs of hope for tomorrow, so shall we sing our woodnotes wild,
amongst rushes and wildness of wild lemon-grass;

For hope springs eternal in the heart
and some larks are set free,





(From 'Selected Poems') 

...Read more of this...

Sunrise on the Hills

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,
They gathered mid-way round the wooded height,
And, in their fading glory, shone
Like hosts in battle overthrown.
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance.
Through the gray mist...Read more of this...

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

by Percy Bysshe Shelley
 I
The everlasting universe of things 
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods...Read more of this...

Ever And Everywhere

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 FAR explore the mountain hollow,
High in air the clouds then follow!

To each brook and vale the Muse

Thousand times her call renews.

Soon as a flow'ret blooms in spring,
It wakens many a strain;

And when Time spreads his fleeting wing,

The seasons come again.

1820.*...Read more of this...

Full many a hill and vale I journeyed o'er;

by Omar Khayyam
Full many a hill and vale I journeyed o'er;
Yea, journeyed through the world's wide quarters four,
But never heard of pilgrim who returned;
When once they go, they go to come no more....Read more of this...

201. Birthday Ode for 31st December 1787

by Robert Burns
 AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams,
 Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;
 An inmate in the casual shed,
 On transient pity’s bounty fed,
 Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!
 Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,
 But He, who should imperial purple wear,
Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!
 His wretched refuge, dark...Read more of this...

Hymn 50

by Isaac Watts
 The song of Zacharias.

Lk. 1:68ff; John 1:29,32. 

Now be the God of Isr'el blessed,
Who makes his truth appear;
His mighty hand fulfils his word,
And all the oaths he sware.

Now he bedews old David's root
With blessings from the skies;
He makes the Branch of Promise grow,
The promised Horn arise.

[John was the prophet of the Lord,
To go before his face;
The herald which our...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

With going to and fro in this sad vale

by Omar Khayyam
With going to and fro in this sad vale
Thou art grown double, and thy credit stale,
Thy nails are thickened like a horse's hoof,
Thy beard is ragged as an ass's tail....Read more of this...

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