Famous Vales Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

The Book of Thel

by William Blake
 THEL'S MOTTO 

1 Does the Eagle know what is in the pit? 
2 Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
3 Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
4 Or Love in a golden bowl? 

I 

1.1 The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks, 
1.2 All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air,
1.3 To...Read more of this...

Sussex

by Rudyard Kipling
 God gave all men all earth to love,
 But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
 Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation's birth,
 So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
 And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content,
 As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove's droned...Read more of this...

No More Music

by Robert William Service
 The Porch was blazoned with geranium bloom;
Myrtle and jasmine meadows lit the lea;
With rose and violet the vale's perfume
Languished to where the hyacinthine sea
Dreamed tenderly . . . "And I must go," said he.

He spoke in that dim, ghostly voice of his:
"I was a singer; then the Was . . . and GAS."
(I had to lean to him, no...Read more of this...

56. Epistle to Davie A Brother Poet

by Robert Burns
 WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
 An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
 In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
 Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
 That live sae bien an’ snug:
...Read more of this...

The House That Was

by Laurence Binyon
 Of the old house, only a few, crumbled 
Courses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock, 
Or a shaped stone lying mossy where it tumbled! 
Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mock 
What once was fire-lit floor and private charm, 
Whence, seen in a windowed picture, were hills fading 
At night, and all was memory-coloured and warm, 
And voices talked,...Read more of this...

The Emperor's Return

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un bouffon manquait à cette fête.") 
 
 {LES BURGRAVES, Part II.} 


 The EMPEROR FREDERICK BARBAROSSA, believed to be dead, appearing 
 as a beggar among the Rhenish nobility at a castle, suddenly reveals 
 himself. 
 
 HATTO. This goodly masque but lacked a fool! 
 First gypsy; next a beggar;—good! Thy name? 
 
 BARBAROSSA. Frederick...Read more of this...

Friendship After Love

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires, 
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes, and torments, and desires, 
Comes large-eyed Friendship: with a restful gaze.
He beckons us...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...

VI. Evening as slow thy placid shades descend..

by William Lisle Bowles
 EVENING, as slow thy placid shades descend, 
Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still, 
The lonely battlement, and farthest hill 
And wood; I think of those that have no friend; 
Who now perhaps, by melancholy led, 
From the broad blaze of day, where pleasure flaunts, 
Retiring, wander 'mid thy lonely haunts 
Unseen; and mark the tints that o'er thy...Read more of this...

A Day in the Open

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Ho, a day
Whereon we may up and away,
With a fetterless wind that is out on the downs,
And there piping a call to the fallow and shore,
Where the sea evermore
Surgeth over the gray reef, and drowns
The fierce rocks with white foam;
It is ours with untired feet to roam
Where the pines in green gloom of wide vales make their murmuring home,
Or...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...

A Years Carols

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.

FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of...Read more of this...

Song V: Through the Trouble and Tangle

by William Morris
 Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle
From yesterday's dawning to yesterday's night
I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle,
Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light
I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might. 

O great was my joy, though no rest was around me,
Though mid wastes of the world were we twain...Read more of this...

Thanatopsis

by William Cullen Bryant
TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty and she glides 5 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXXIII. Valle che d' lamenti miei se' piena. ON HIS RETURN TO VAUCLUSE AFTER LAURA'S DEATH.  Valley, which long hast echoed with my cries;Stream, which my flowing tears have often fed;Beasts, fluttering birds, and ye who in the bedOf Cabrieres' wave display your speckled dyes;Air, hush'd to rest and soften'd...Read more of this...

Theodens Fall

by J R R Tolkien
 We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
The swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the stoning land
As wind in the morning. War was kindled.
There Theoden fell, Thengling mighty,
To his golden halls and green pastures
In the Northern fields never returning,
High lord of the host. Harding and Guthlaf,
Dunhere and Deorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
Fought and...Read more of this...

You Gote-heard Gods

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Strephon. 

You Gote-heard Gods, that loue the grassie mountaines, 
You Nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies, 
You Satyrs ioyde with free and quiet forests, 
Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique, 
Which to my woes giues still an early morning; 
And drawes the dolor on till wery euening. 

Klaius. 

O Mercurie, foregoer to the euening, 
O heauenlie...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLXXXIII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXXIII. Il cantar novo e 'l pianger degli augelli. MORNING.  The birds' sweet wail, their renovated song,At break of morn, make all the vales resound;With lapse of crystal waters pouring round,In clear, swift runnels, the fresh shores among.She, whose pure passion knows nor guile nor wrong,With front of snow,...Read more of this...

The Progress of Spring

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 THE groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould, 
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea, 
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold 
That trembles not to kisses of the bee: 
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves 
The spear of ice has wept itself away, 
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves 
O'er his uncertain...Read more of this...

All the Hills and Vales Along

by Charles Sorley
 All the hills and vales along
 Earth is bursting into song,
 And the singers are the chaps
 Who are going to die perhaps.
 O sing, marching men,
 Till the valleys ring again.
 Give your gladness to earth's keeping,
 So be glad, when you are sleeping.
 Cast away regret and rue,
 Think what you are marching to.
 Little live, great...Read more of this...

To A Golden Heart That He Wore Round His Neck

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Addressed, during the Swiss tour already mentioned, 
to a present Lily had given him, during the time of their happy 
connection, which was then about to be terminated for ever.]

OH thou token loved of joys now perish'd

That I still wear from my neck suspended,
Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish'd?

Or canst thou prolong love's days untimely ended?

Lily, I...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

A Summer Day

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 I 

The dawn laughs out on orient hills 
And dances with the diamond rills; 
The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs 
The silken, beaded gossamers; 
In the wide valleys, lone and fair, 
Lyrics are piped from limpid air, 
And, far above, the pine trees free 
Voice ancient lore of sky and sea. 
Come, let us fill our hearts straightway 
With...Read more of this...

Facing West from California-™s Shores

by Walt Whitman
 FACING west, from California’s shores, 
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, 
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations,
 look afar, 
Look off the shores of my Western Sea—the circle almost circled; 
For, starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia—from the north—from the God, the sage, and...Read more of this...

Benediction

by Charles Baudelaire
 NOW the rooftree of the midnight spreading,
 Buds in citron, green, and blue:
From afar its mystic odours shedding,
 Child, on you.


Now the buried stars beneath the mountain
 And the vales their life renew,
Jetting rainbow blooms from tiny fountains,
 Child, for you.


In the diamond air the sun-star glowing,
 Up its feathered radiance threw;
All the jewel glory there was flowing,
 Child,...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Vales poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace