Famous Vibrations Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Cadenza

by Carl Sandburg
 THE KNEES
 of this proud woman
are bone.

The elbows
 of this proud woman
are bone.

The summer-white stars
 and the winter-white stars
never stop circling
 around this proud woman.

The bones
 of this proud woman
answer the vibrations
 of the stars.

 In summer
the stars speak deep thoughts
 In the winter
the stars repeat summer speeches.

The knees
 of this proud woman
know these thoughts
 and know these speeches
of...Read more of this...

Ode to Envy

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides, 
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began: 
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire. 
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating...Read more of this...

America

by Allen Ginsberg
 America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. 
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 
 17, 1956. 
I can't stand my own mind. 
America when will we end the human war? 
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb. 
I don't feel good don't bother me. 
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. 
America...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...

Variations of an Air

by G K Chesterton
 Old King Cole
Was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he
He called for his pipe 
and he called for his bowl 
and he called for his fiddlers three


after Lord Tennyson


Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester, 
Growing more gay with age and with long days 
Deeper in laughter and desire of life 
As that Virginian climber on our...Read more of this...

Percival Sharp

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Observe the clasped hands!
Are they hands of farewell or greeting,
Hands that I helped or hands that helped me?
Would it not be well to carve a hand
With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus?
And yonder is a broken chain,
The weakest-link idea perhaps --
But what was it?
And lambs, some lying down,
Others standing, as if listening to the shepherd --
Others bearing a cross, one...Read more of this...

The Stand-Ins

by Anne Sexton
 In the dream
the swastika is neon
and flashes like a strobe light
into my eyes, all colors,
all vibrations
and I see the killer in him
and he turns on an oven,
an oven, an oven, an oven,
and on a pie plate he sticks
in my Yellow Star
and then
then when it is ready for serving—
this dream goes off into the wings
and on stage The Cross appears,
with...Read more of this...

Berck-Plage

by Sylvia Plath
(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The...Read more of this...

The Revolutionary

by D. H. Lawrence
 Look at them standing there in authority 
The pale-faces, 
As if it could have any effect any more. 

Pale-face authority,
Caryatids, 
Pillars of white bronze standing rigid, lest the skies fall. 

What a job they've got to keep it up. 
Their poor, idealist foreheads naked capitals 
To the entablature of clouded heaven. 

When the skies are going to fall, fall...Read more of this...

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so...Read more of this...

Sonnet XII: Now Oer the Tesselated Pavement

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Now, o'er the tessellated pavement strew
Fresh saffron, steep'd in essence of the rose,
While down yon agate column gently flows
A glitt'ring streamlet of ambrosial dew!
My Phaon smiles! the rich carnation's hue,
On his flush'd cheek in conscious lustre glows,
While o'er his breast enamour'd Venus throws 
Her starry mantle of celestial blue!
Breathe soft, ye dulcet flutes, among the trees
Where clust'ring boughs with...Read more of this...

Anne Rutledge

by Edgar Lee Masters
 Out of me unworthy and unknown 
The vibrations of deathless music; 
'With malice toward none, with charity for all.' 
Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, 
And the beneficient face of a nation 
Shining with justice and truth. 
I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, 
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, 
Wedded to him, not...Read more of this...

Song of the Soul XXII

by Kahlil Gibran
 In the depth of my soul there is 
A wordless song - a song that lives 
In the seed of my heart. 
It refuses to melt with ink on 
Parchment; it engulfs my affection 
In a transparent cloak and flows, 
But not upon my lips. 


How can I sigh it? I fear it may 
Mingle with earthly ether; 
To...Read more of this...

Before Sleep

by Ezra Pound
 The lateral vibrations caress me, 
They leap and caress me, 
They work pathetically in my favour, 
They seek my financial good. 

She of the spear stands present. 
The gods of the underworld attend me, O Annubis, 
These are they of thy company. 
With a pathetic solicitude they attend me; 
Undulant, 
Their realm is the lateral courses. 


Light! 
I am...Read more of this...

Sonnet IV: Why When I Gaze

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Why, when I gaze on Phaon's beauteous eyes,
Why does each thought in wild disorder stray?
Why does each fainting faculty decay,
And my chill'd breast in throbbing tumults rise?
Mute, on the ground my Lyre neglected lies,
The Muse forgot, and lost the melting lay;
My down-cast looks, my faultering lips betray,
That stung by hopeless passion,--Sappho dies!
Now, on a bank of Cypress let me...Read more of this...

Bayonet

by Anne Sexton
 What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.

It was made
in my dream
for you.
My eyes were closed.
I was curled fetally
and yet I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like alpine roads.
It was made...Read more of this...

The Arsenal at Springfield

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling  
Like a huge organ rise the burnished arms; 
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing 
Startles the villages with strange alarms. 

Ah! what a sound will rise how wild and dreary 5 
When the death-angel touches those swift keys! 
What loud lament and dismal Miserere 
Will mingle with their awful...Read more of this...

sea horn

by Rg Gregory
 within the shell swim all the sea's fish
our ears too are compendiums of sound
the big bang exploded - such a long wish
waves and warps towards the present ground

shell to ear - each breeds the other's cry
infinity in slices sluiced in words
haunting the future in us till we die
and what we cannot bring to reason birds

mock in us - lift...Read more of this...

Glass was the Street -- in tinsel Peril

by Emily Dickinson
 Glass was the Street -- in tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood --
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road --

Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrations
Emphasized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes this Present mean --...Read more of this...

The Lost Dancer

by Jean Toomer
 Spatial depths of being survive
The birth to death recurrences
Of feet dancing on earth of sand;
Vibrations of the dance survive
The sand; the sand, elect, survives
The dancer. He can find no source
Of magic adequate to bind
The sand upon his feet, his feet
Upon his dance, his dance upon
The diamond body of his being....Read more of this...

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