Famous Valleys Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Accountability

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 FOLKS ain't got no right to censuah othah folks about dey habits;
Him dat giv' de squir'ls de bushtails made de bobtails fu' de rabbits.
Him dat built de gread big mountains hollered out de little valleys,
Him dat made de streets an' driveways wasn't shamed to make de alleys.

We is all constructed diff'ent, d'ain't no two of us de same;
We cain't...Read more of this...

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

by Christopher Marlowe
COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and...Read more of this...

North Country

by Kenneth Slessor
 North Country, filled with gesturing wood, 
With trees that fence, like archers' volleys, 
The flanks of hidden valleys 
Where nothing's left to hide 

But verticals and perpendiculars, 
Like rain gone wooden, fixed in falling, 
Or fingers blindly feeling 
For what nobody cares; 

Or trunks of pewter, bangled by greedy death, 
Stuck with black staghorns, quietly sucking, 
And trees whose...Read more of this...

The Perch

by Galway Kinnell
There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road, turned in at
the lane which a few weeks ago,
when the trees were almost empty
and...Read more of this...

The Hermit of Mont-Blanc

by Mary Darby Robinson
 High, on the Solitude of Alpine Hills,
O'er-topping the grand imag'ry of Nature,
Where one eternal winter seem'd to reign;
An HERMIT'S threshold, carpetted with moss,
Diversified the Scene. Above the flakes
Of silv'ry snow, full many a modest flow'r
Peep'd through its icy veil, and blushing ope'd
Its variegated hues; The ORCHIS sweet,
The bloomy CISTUS, and the fragrant branch
Of glossy MYRTLE. In his rushy cell,
The...Read more of this...

The Hill Maples

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder,
Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years!
Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn
Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears. 

The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows uplifted
When the silver-kirtled day steps over the...Read more of this...

Ode to W. H. Channing

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent...Read more of this...

The Valleys Singing Day

by Robert Frost
 The sound of the closing outside door was all.
You made no sound in the grass with your footfall,
As far as you went from the door, which was not far;
But had awakened under the morning star
The first song-bird that awakened all the rest.
He could have slept but a moment more at best.
Already determined dawn began to lay
In place across a...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor

by Robert William Service
 Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
"Alas! it's true," said Tam MacCall. "The young folk of to-day
Are fox-trot mad and dinna ken a reel from Strathspey.
Now, what we want's a...Read more of this...

On Growing Old

by John Masefield
 Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying; 
My dog and I are old, too old for roving. 
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying, 
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving. 
I take the book and gather to the fire, 
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute 
The clock ticks to my heart....Read more of this...

A Message to Commissioner Li At Zizhou

by Wang Wei
 From ten thousand valleys the trees touch heaven; 
On a thousand peaks cuckoos are calling; 
And, after a night of mountain rain, 
From each summit come hundreds of silken cascades. 
...If girls are asked in tribute the fibre they weave, 
Or farmers quarrel over taro fields, 
Preside as wisely as Wenweng did.... 
Is fame to be only for the...Read more of this...

Dream Song 15: Let us suppose valleys and such ago

by John Berryman
 Let us suppose, valleys & such ago,
one pal unwinding from his labours in
one bar of Chicago
and this did actually happen. This was so.
And many graces are slipped, & many a sin
even that laid man low

but this will be remembered & told over,
that she was heard at last, haughtful & greasy,
to brawl in that low bar:
'You can biff me, you...Read more of this...

LEnvoi

by Robert William Service
 We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,
 Of men who played the game and lost or won;
Of mad stampedes, of toil beyond all measure,
 Of camp-fire comfort when the day was done.
We talked of sullen nights by moon-dogs haunted,
 Of bird and beast and tree, of rod and gun;
Of boat and tent, of hunting-trip enchanted
 Beneath the wonder...Read more of this...

In the Greenest of our Valleys

by Edgar Allan Poe
 I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace --reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This --all this --was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the...Read more of this...

The Last Rose

by John Davidson
 'O WHICH is the last rose?' 
A blossom of no name. 
At midnight the snow came; 
At daybreak a vast rose, 
In darkness unfurl'd, 
O'er-petall'd the world. 

Its odourless pallor 
Blossom'd forlorn, 
Till radiant valour 
Establish'd the morn-- 
Till the night 
Was undone 
In her fight 
With the sun. 

The brave orb in state rose, 
And crimson he shone...Read more of this...

The Eruption Of Vesuvius

by Victor Hugo
 ("Quand longtemps a grondé la bouche du Vésuve.") 
 
 {I. vii.} 


 When huge Vesuvius in its torment long, 
 Threatening has growled its cavernous jaws among, 
 When its hot lava, like the bubbling wine, 
 Foaming doth all its monstrous edge incarnadine, 
 Then is alarm in Naples. 
 
 With dismay, 
 Wanton and wild...Read more of this...

Dream Song 61: Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside

by John Berryman
 Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside
and the land is celebrating men of war
more or less, less or more.
In valleys, thin on headlands, narrow & wide
our targets rest. In us we trust. Far, near,
the bivouacs of fear

are solemn in the moon somewhere tonight,
in turning time. It's late for gratitude,
an annual, rude
roar of a moment's turkey's 'Thanks'. Bright & white
their ordered...Read more of this...

Accountability

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Folks ain't got no right to censuah othah folks about dey habits;
Him dat giv' de squir'ls de bushtails made de bobtails fu' de rabbits.
Him dat built de gread big mountains hollered out de little valleys,
Him dat made de streets an' driveways wasn't shamed to make de alleys.
We is all constructed diff'ent, d'ain't no two of us de same;
We cain't he'p...Read more of this...

In Valleys of Springs and Rivers

by A E Housman
 "Clunton and Clunbury,
Clungunford and Clun,
Are the quietest places
Under the sun."


In valleys of springs and rivers, 
By Ony and Teme and Clun, 
The country for easy livers, 
The quietest under the sun, 

We still had sorrows to lighten, 
One could not be always glad, 
And lads knew trouble at Knighton 
When I was a Knighton lad. 

By bridges that Thames...Read more of this...

Elevation

by Charles Baudelaire
 Above the ponds, beyond the valleys,
The woods, the mountains, the clouds, the seas,
Farther than the sun, the distant breeze,
The spheres that wilt to infinity

My spirit, you move with agility
And, like a good swimmer who swoons in the wave
You groove the depths immensity gave,
The inexpressible and male ecstasy.

>From this miasma of waste,
You will be purified in superior air
And drink a...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Chattahoochee

by Sidney Lanier
 Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the...Read more of this...

The Rovers

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Over the fields we go, through the sweets of the purple clover,
That letters a message for us as for every vagrant rover;
Before us the dells are abloom, and a leaping brook calls after,
Feeling its kinship with us in lore of dreams and laughter. 

Out of the valleys of moonlight elfin voices are calling;
Down from the misty hills faint, far...Read more of this...

The Prophet

by Alexander Pushkin
 Longing for spiritual springs,
I dragged myself through desert sands ...
An angel with three pairs of wings
Arrived to me at cross of lands;
With fingers so light and slim
He touched my eyes as in a dream:
And opened my prophetic eyes 
Like eyes of eagle in surprise.
He touched my ears in movement, single,
And they were filled with noise and jingle:
I heard a...Read more of this...

On the Bay

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 When the salt wave laps on the long, dim shore,
And frets the reef with its windy sallies,
And the dawn's white light is threading once more
The purple firs in the landward valleys, 
While yet the arms of the wide gray sea 
Are cradling the sunrise that is to be, 
The fisherman's boat, through the mist afar, 
Has sailed in the...Read more of this...

Piping Down the Valleys Wild

by William Blake
 Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

'Pipe a song about a lamb!'
So I piped with merry cheer.
'Piper, pipe that song again.'
So I piped: he wept to hear.

'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer.'
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy...Read more of this...

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