Famous Vivid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Baby Tortoise

...ur battle-shield.

The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.

How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.

Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemori...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.


Blue

...Which vibrates untouched and virile through the grandeur of night,
But which, when dawn crows challenge, assaulting the vivid motes
Of living darkness, bursts fretfully, and is bright: 

Runs like a fretted arc-lamp into light, 
Stirred by conflict to shining, which else
Were dark and whole with the night. 

Runs to a fret of speed like a racing wheel, 
Which else were aslumber along with the whole 
Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead of a-reel. 

Is chafed to anger, burst...Read more of this...
by Lawrence, D. H.

Cosmopolitan Greetings

...w & imagine.

Absolutes are coercion.

Change is absolute.

Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.

Observe what's vivid.

Notice what you notice.

Catch yourself thinking.

Vividness is self-selecting.

If we don't show anyone, we're free to write anything.

Remember the future.

Advise only yourself.

Don't drink yourself to death.

Two molecules clanking against each other requires an observer to become 
 scientific data.

The measuring instrument determines the appea...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Dreams

...night-wind- let it pass.

I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
I have been happy- and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality, which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known....Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

Endymion: Book II

...hum celestial. High afar
The Latmian saw them minish into nought;
And, when all were clear vanish'd, still he caught
A vivid lightning from that dreadful bow.
When all was darkened, with Etnean throe
The earth clos'd--gave a solitary moan--
And left him once again in twilight lone.

 He did not rave, he did not stare aghast,
For all those visions were o'ergone, and past,
And he in loneliness: he felt assur'd
Of happy times, when all he had endur'd
Would seem a feather to the...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Ode on Adversity

...RE o'er my head, the deaf'ning Tempest blew, 
And Night's cold lamp cast forth a feeble ray; 
Where o'er the woodlands, vivid light'nings flew, 
Cleft the strong oak, and scorch'd the blossom'd spray; 
At morn's approach, I mark the sun's warm glow 
O'er the grey hill a crimson radiance throw; 
I mark the silv'ry fragrant dew, 
Give lustre to the vi'let's hue; 
The shallow rivers o'er their pebbly way, 
In slow meanders murmuring play; 
Day spreads her beams, the lofty forest...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Ode to the Muse

...hetic sigh; 
O teach me, with swift light'nings force
To watch wild passion's varying course; 
To mark th' enthusiast's vivid fire,
Or calmly touch thy golden lyre,
While gentle Reason mildly sings
Responsive to the trembling strings. 

SWEET Nymph, enchanting Poetry! 
I dedicate my mind to Thee. 
Oh! from thy bright Parnassian bow'rs
Descend, to bless my sombre hours;
Bend to the earth thy eagle wing,
And on its glowing plumage bring
Blithe FANCY, from whose burning eye
The ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

Resolution And Independence

...is a lonesome place for one like you." 
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise 
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes, 

XIV 

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, 
But each in solemn order followed each, 
With something of a lofty utterance drest-- 
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach 
Of ordinary men; a stately speech; 
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use, 
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues. 

XV 

He told, that to these ...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Comedian As The Letter C

...arbarous. 
96 But Crispin was too destitute to find 
97 In any commonplace the sought-for aid. 
98 He was a man made vivid by the sea, 
99 A man come out of luminous traversing, 
100 Much trumpeted, made desperately clear, 
101 Fresh from discoveries of tidal skies, 
102 To whom oracular rockings gave no rest. 
103 Into a savage color he went on. 

104 How greatly had he grown in his demesne, 
105 This auditor of insects! He that saw 
106 The stride of vanishing a...Read more of this...
by Stevens, Wallace

The Cremona Violin

...and its headlong flow
Filled him with all the energy she gave.
He was a youth again, and this bright glow,
This living, vivid joy he had to show
Her what she was to him. Laughing and crying,
She asked assurances there's no denying.
Over and over again her questions, till
He quite convinced her, every now and then
She kissed him, shivering as though doubting still.
But later when they were composed and when
She dared relax her probings, "Lottachen,"
He asked, "how is it your l...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Good Man

...The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.

Watches our bogus roses, our rank wreath, our
love's unreliable cement, the gray
jubilees of our demondom.
Coherent
Counsel! Good man.
Require of us our terribly excluded blue.
C...Read more of this...
by Brooks, Gwendolyn

The Haunted House

...solved the doubt,
Wherefore, among those flags so dull and livid,
The banner of the bloody hand shone out
So ominously vivid.

Some key to that inscrutable appeal
Which made the very frame of Nature quiver,
And every thrilling nerve and fiber feel
So ague-like a shiver.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread,
But through o...Read more of this...
by Hood, Thomas

The Negro Girl

...-impatient of controul.


XVI. 

"Again the lightning flashes white--
"The rattling cords among!
"Now, by the transient vivid light,
"I mark the frantic throng!
"Now up the tatter'd shrouds my DRACO flies--
While o'er the plunging prow, the curling billows rise.


XVII. 

"The topmast falls--three shackled slaves--
"Cling to the Vessel's side!
"Now lost amid the madd'ning waves--
"Now on the mast they ride--
"See ! on the forecastle my DRACO stands
"And now he waves his chain...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Other Tiger

...nks
Of sluggish streams whose names it does not know
(In its world there are no names or past
Or time to come, only the vivid now)
And makes its way across wild distances
Sniffing the braided labyrinth of smells
And in the wind picking the smell of dawn
And tantalizing scent of grazing deer;
Among the bamboo's slanting stripes I glimpse
The tiger's stripes and sense the bony frame
Under the splendid, quivering cover of skin.
Curving oceans and the planet's wastes keep us
Apar...Read more of this...
by Borges, Jorge Luis

The Seasons: Winter

...ling Fogs, and swim along 
The dusky-mantled Lawn: then slow descend,
Once more to mingle with their Watry Friends.
The vivid Stars shine out, in radiant Files;
And boundless Ether glows, till the fair Moon
Shows her broad Visage, in the crimson'd East; 
Now, stooping, seems to kiss the passing Cloud:
Now, o'er the pure Cerulean, rides sublime.
Wide the pale Deluge floats, with silver Waves,
O'er the sky'd Mountain, to the low-laid Vale;
From the white Rocks, with dim Reflexi...Read more of this...
by Thomson, James

The White Cliffs

...on, 
And I acquired there 
The Anecdotes of Painting 
From a handcart in the square.

The Playing fields at sunset
Were vivid emerald green,
The elms were tall and mighty,
And many youths were seen,
Carefree young gentlemen
In the Spring of 'Fourteen.

XI 
London, just before dawn-immense and dark—
Smell of wet earth and growth from the empty Park, 
Pall Mall vacant-Whitehall deserted. Johnnie and I 
Strolling together, averse to saying good-bye—
Strolling away from some part...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

To A Young Lady

...s of human kind,
That heart by friendship's charms inspired,
That soul with sprightly fancy fired,
The air of life, the vivid eye,
The flowing wit, the keen reply--
To paint these beauties as they shine,
Might ask a nobler pen than mine.


Yet what sure strokes can draw the Fair,
Who vary, like the fleeting air,
Like willows bending to the force,
Where'er the gales direct their course,
Opposed to no misfortune's power,
And changing with the changing hour.
Now gaily sporting o...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Train Ride

...ned with far scattered city rattles
to the hubbub of forest birds (never having
"had time" to grieve or to hear through vivid sleep
the sea knock on its cracked and hollow stones)
so that the stars, almost, and birds comply,
and the garden-wet; the trees retire; We are
a scared patrol, fearing the guns behind;
always the enemy is the foe at home.
What wonder that we fear our own eyes' look
and fidget to be at home alone, and pitifully
put of age by some change in brushing the...Read more of this...
by García Lorca, Federico

Train Ride

...ned with far scattered city rattles
to the hubbub of forest birds (never having
"had time" to grieve or to hear through vivid sleep
the sea knock on its cracked and hollow stones)
so that the stars, almost, and birds comply,
and the garden-wet; the trees retire; We are
a scared patrol, fearing the guns behind;
always the enemy is the foe at home.
What wonder that we fear our own eyes' look
and fidget to be at home alone, and pitifully
put of age by some change in brushing the...Read more of this...
by Wheelwright, John

Travelling Again

...er once travel place Bridge remember again cross time River mountain like waiting Flower willow become selfless Country vivid mist shine thin Sand soft sun colour late Traveller sorrow all become decrease Stay here again what this I remember the temple, this route I've travelled before, I recall the bridge as I cross it again. It seems the hills and rivers have been waiting, The flowers and willows all are selfless now. The field is sleek and vivid...Read more of this...
by Fu, Du

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