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Famous Water Lily Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Yeats, William Butler
...ARGUMENT. Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the
Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land
among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so
that their hearts were broken and they died.

 I hardly hear the curlew cry,
 Nor thegrey rush when the wind is high,
 Before my thoughts begin to run
 On the heir of Uladh, ...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,
While yet our England was a wolfish den;
Before our forests heard the talk of men;
Before the first of Druids was a child;--
Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild
Rapt in a deep prophetic so...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
..."Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree! 
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree! 
Growing by the rushing river, 
Tall and stately in the valley! 
I a light canoe will build me, 
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, 
That shall float on the river, 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily!
"Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree! 
Lay aside your white-ski...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Ted
...To Paint a Water Lily

A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond's chamber and paves

The flies' furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.

First observe the air's dragonfly
That eats meat, that bullets by

Or stands in space to take aim;
Others as dangerous comb the hum

Under the trees. There are battle-shouts
And death-cries everywhere hereab...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...r> 

Let Pelaiah rejoice with Cloud-Berries. God be gracious to Peele and Ferry. 

Let Azaniah rejoice with the Water Lily. 

Let Rehob rejoice with Caucalis Bastard Parsley. 

Let Sherebiah rejoice with Nigella, that bears a white flower. 

Let Beninu rejoice with Heart-Pear. God be gracious to George Bening. 

Let Bunni rejoice with Bulbine -- leaves like leek, purple flower. 

Let Zatthu rejoice with the Wild Service. 

Let Hizkijah rejo...Read more of this...



by Smart, Christopher
...like laurel long and thick good against serpents. 

Let Conworth, house of Conworth rejoice with Nenuphar a kind of Water Lily. 

Let Ransom, house of Ransom rejoice with Isidos Plocamos a sea shrub of the Coral kind, or rather like Coral. 

Let Ponder, house of Ponder rejoice with Polion an herb, whose leaves are white in the morning, purple at noon, and blue in the evening. 

Let Woodward, house of Woodward rejoice with Nerium the Rose-Laurel -- God make the...Read more of this...

by Meredith, George
...Under yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
Couched with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,
Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow,
Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me:
Then would she hold...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...Sometimes in morning sunlights by the river
Where in the early fall long grasses wave,
Light winds from over the moorland sink and shiver
And sigh as if just blown across a grave.

And then I pause and listen to this sighing.
I look with strange eyes on the well-known stream.
I hear wild birth-cries uttered by the dying.
I know men waking w...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...Song of the Indian Maid 

O SORROW! 
Why dost borrow 
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?¡ª 
To give maiden blushes 
To the white rose bushes? 5 
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

O Sorrow! 
Why dost borrow 
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?¡ª 
To give the glow-worm light? 10 
Or, on a moonless night, 
To tinge, on siren...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...O SORROW! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?-- 
 To give maiden blushes 
 To the white rose bushes? 
 Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

 O Sorrow! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?-- 
 To give the glow-worm light? 
 Or, on a moonless night, 
 To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry? 

 O ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...O SORROW! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?-- 
 To give maiden blushes 
 To the white rose bushes? 
 Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips? 

 O Sorrow! 
 Why dost borrow 
 The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?-- 
 To give the glow-worm light? 
 Or, on a moonless night, 
 To tinge, on siren shores, the salt sea-spry? 

 O ...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...And now it was evening. 

And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken." 

And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener? 

Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck. 

And facing the people ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ON either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
And thro' the field the road runs by 
To many-tower'd Camelot; 5 
And up and down the people go, 
Gazing where the lilies blow 
Round an island there below, 
The island of Shalott. 

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 10 
Little breezes dusk ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...CANTO FIRST.

The Chase.

     Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
        On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring
     And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
        Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
     Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,—
        O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
   ...Read more of this...

by Rilke, Rainer Maria
...My whole life is mine, but whoever says so
will deprive me, for it is infinite.
The ripple of water, the shade of the sky
are mine; it is still the same, my life.

No desire opens me: I am full,
I never close myself with refusal-
in the rythm of my daily soul
I do not desire-I am moved;

by being moved I exert my empire,
making the dreams of night ...Read more of this...

by Ibsen, Henrik
...SEE, dear, what thy lover brings; 
'Tis the flower with the white wings. 
Buoyed upon the quiet stream 
In the spring it lay adream. 

Homelike to bestow this guest, 
Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast; 
There its leaves the secret keep 
Of a wave both still and deep. 

Child, beware the tarn-fed stream; 
Danger, danger, there to dream! 
Though ...Read more of this...

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