Famous Vermilion Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Creature Catechism

by Bliss Carman
 I
Soul, what art thou in the tribes of the sea?


LORD, said a flying fish, 
Below the foundations of storm 
We feel the primal wish 
Of the earth take form. 

Through the dim green water-fire 
We see the red sun loom, 
And the quake of a new desire 
Takes hold on us down in the gloom. 

No more can the...Read more of this...

Stanzas to Love

by Mary Darby Robinson
 TELL ME, LOVE, when I rove o'er some far distant plain,
Shall I cherish the passion that dwells in my breast?
Or will ABSENCE subdue the keen rigours of pain,
And the swift wing of TIME bring the balsam of rest? 

Shall the image of HIM I was born to adore,
Inshrin'd in my bosom my idol still prove?
Or seduced by caprice shall...Read more of this...

LoveSpell: Against Endings

by Erica Jong
 All the endings in my life
rise up against me
like that sea of troubles
Shakespeare mixed
with metaphors;
like Vikings in their boats
singing Wagner,
like witches
burning at
the stake--
I submit
to my fate.

I know beginnings,
their sweetnesses,
and endings,
their bitternesses--
but I do not know
continuance--
I do not know
the sweet demi-boredom
of life as it lingers,
of man and wife
regarding each other
across a table of shared witnesses,
of the hand-in-hand dreams
of those who...Read more of this...

Oberon to the Queen of the Fairies

by Mary Darby Robinson
 My OBERON, with ev'ry sprite
"That gilds the vapours of the night,
"Shall dance and weave the verdant ring
"With joy that mortals thus can sing; 
"And when thou sigh'st MARIA'S name, 
"And mourn'st to feel a hopeless flame, 
"Eager they'll catch the tender note
"Just parting from thy tuneful throat, 
"And bear it to the careless ear 
"Of her who scorn'd a...Read more of this...

Lines on Hearing it Declared that No Women Were So Handsome as the English

by Mary Darby Robinson
 BEAUTY, the attribute of Heaven! 
In various forms to mortals given, 
With magic skill enslaves mankind, 
As sportive fancy sways the mind. 
Search the wide world, go where you will, 
VARIETY pursues you still; 
Capricious Nature knows no bound, 
Her unexhausted gifts are found 
In ev'ry clime, in ev'ry face, 
Each has its own peculiar grace. 

To GALLIA's frolic...Read more of this...

Linda Pastan - Vermilion

by Linda Pastan
 Pierre Bonnard would enter
the museum with a tube of paint
in his pocket and a sable brush.
Then violating the sanctity
of one of his own frames
he'd add a stroke of vermilion
to the skin of a flower.
Just so I stopped you
at the door this morning
and licking my index finger, removed
an invisible crumb
from your vermilion mouth. As if
at the ritual moment of departure
I...Read more of this...

Female Fashions for 1799

by Mary Darby Robinson
 A form, as any taper, fine ;
A head like half-pint bason ;
Where golden cords, and bands entwine,
As rich as fleece of JASON.

A pair of shoulders strong and wide,
Like country clown enlisting ;
Bare arms long dangling by the side,
And shoes of ragged listing !

Cravats like towels, thick and broad,
Long tippets made of bear-skin,
Muffs that a RUSSIAN might applaud,
And rouge to...Read more of this...

Although we saw this bright garden

by Emile Verhaeren
Although we saw this bright garden, wherein we pass silently, flower before our eyes, it is rather in us that grows the pleasantest and fairest garden in the world.
For we live all the flowers, all the plants and all the grasses in our laughter and our tears of pure and calm happiness.
For we live all the transparencies of the blue...Read more of this...

Rinaldo to Laura Maria

by Mary Darby Robinson
 THOU! whose sublime poetic art 
Can pierce the pulses of the heart, 
Can force the treasur'd tear to flow 
In prodigality of woe; 
Or lure each jocund bliss to birth 
Amid the sportive bow'rs of mirth: 
LAURA DIVINE! I call thee now 
To yonder promontory's brow 
That props the skies; while at its feet 
With fruitless ire the billows...Read more of this...

Indian Love Song

by Sarojini Naidu
 She

LIKE a serpent to the calling voice of flutes, 
Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love! 
Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above 
His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers; 
And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits 
Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers. 


He

Like the perfume in the petals of a rose, 
Hides thy heart within my bosom, O...Read more of this...

Haze

by Carl Sandburg
 KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.

Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.

Other faces rise on the...Read more of this...

Lyman frederick and jim

by Eugene Field
 (FOR THE FELLOWSHIP CLU 

Lyman and Frederick and Jim, one day,
Set out in a great big ship--
Steamed to the ocean adown the bay
Out of a New York slip.
"Where are you going and what is your game?"
The people asked those three.
"Darned if we know; but all the same
Happy as larks are we;
And happier still we're going to be!"
Said Lyman
And Frederick
And...Read more of this...

No Fault In Women

by Robert Herrick
 No fault in women, to refuse
The offer which they most would chuse.
--No fault: in women, to confess
How tedious they are in their dress;
--No fault in women, to lay on
The tincture of vermilion;
And there to give the cheek a dye
Of white, where Nature doth deny.
--No fault in women, to make show
Of largeness, when they're nothing so;
When, true it is, the...Read more of this...

Before the Altar

by Amy Lowell
 Before the Altar, bowed, he stands
With empty hands;
Upon it perfumed offerings burn
Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn.
Not one of all these has he given,
No flame of his has leapt to Heaven
Firesouled, vermilion-hearted,
Forked, and darted,
Consuming what a few spare pence
Have cheaply bought, to fling from hence
In idly-asked petition.
His sole condition
Love and poverty.
And while the moon
Swings slow across the sky,
Athwart a...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCVIII

by William Shakespeare
 From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them...Read more of this...

There is a June when Corn is cut

by Emily Dickinson
 There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed --
A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return --

Two Seasons, it is said, exist --
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost --

May not our...Read more of this...

Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring

by William Shakespeare
 From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them...Read more of this...

Ave Imperatrix

by Oscar Wilde
 Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires...Read more of this...

Hiawathas Wedding-Feast

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
How the handsome Yenadizze 
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding; 
How the gentle Chibiabos, 
He the sweetest of musicians, 
Sang his songs of love and longing; 
How Iagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
Told his tales of strange adventure, 
That the feast might be more joyous, 
That the time might pass more gayly, 
And...Read more of this...

ENDYMION (For music)

by Oscar Wilde
 The apple trees are hung with gold,
And birds are loud in Arcady,
The sheep lie bleating in the fold,
The wild goat runs across the wold,
But yesterday his love he told,
I know he will come back to me.
O rising moon! O Lady moon!
Be you my lover's sentinel,
You cannot choose but know him well,
For he is shod with purple shoon,
You cannot choose...Read more of this...

The Captured Goddess

by Amy Lowell
 Over the housetops,
Above the rotating chimney-pots,
I have seen a shiver of amethyst,
And blue and cinnamon have flickered
A moment,
At the far end of a dusty street.
Through sheeted rain
Has come a lustre of crimson,
And I have watched moonbeams
Hushed by a film of palest green.
It was her wings,
Goddess!
Who stepped over the clouds,
And laid her rainbow feathers
Aslant on the currents of the air.
I...Read more of this...

Of Yellow was the outer Sky

by Emily Dickinson
 Of Yellow was the outer Sky
In Yellower Yellow hewn
Till Saffron in Vermilion slid
Whose seam could not be shewn....Read more of this...

The Rose

by Richard Lovelace
 Sweet serene sky-like flower,
Haste to adorn her bower;
From thy long cloudy bed
Shoot forth thy damask head!

New-startled blush of Flora,
The grief of pale Aurora,
Who will contest no more,
Haste, haste to strew her floor!

Vermilion ball that's given
From lip to lip in heaven,
Love's couch's coverlet,
Haste, haste to make her bed!

Dear offspring of pleased Venus
And jolly plump Silenus,
Haste, haste to deck the hair
Of...Read more of this...

In the garden of our love

by Emile Verhaeren
In the garden of our love, summer still goes on: yonder, a golden peacock crosses an avenue; petals—pearls, emeralds, turquoises —deck the uniform slumber of the green swards.
Our blue ponds shimmer, covered with the white kiss of the snowy water-lilies; in the quincunxes, our currant bushes follow one another in procession; an iridescent insect teases the heart of a flower;...Read more of this...

Behind the Arras

by Bliss Carman
 I like the old house tolerably well, 
Where I must dwell 
Like a familiar gnome; 
And yet I never shall feel quite at home. 
I love to roam. 
Day after day I loiter and explore 
From door to door; 
So many treasures lure 
The curious mind. What histories obscure 
They must immure! 

I hardly know which room I care...Read more of this...

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