Famous Watery Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Watery poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous watery poems. These examples illustrate what a famous watery poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Robert Frost
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods...Read more of this...
by
Mark Hillringhouse
for Greg Fallon
A kid yells "*************" out the school bus window.
I don't think anyone notices the afternoon clouds turning pink along the horizon,
sunlight dripping down the stone facades,
the ancient names of old stores fading like the last century
above the street, above the Spandex women who adjust their prize buttocks,
sweating in the sun as I wonder how this city...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way.
Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade,
Ah fields beloved in vain,
Where once my careless childhood...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
(Oliver Cromwell)
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
1
And now 'tis time; for their officious haste,
Who would before have borne him to the sky,
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past
Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly....Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Whenas—(I love that “whenas” word—
It shows I am a poet, too,)
Q. Horace Flaccus gaily stirred
The welkin with his tra-la-loo,
He little thought one donkey’s back
Would carry thus a double load—
Father and son upon one jack,
Galumphing down the Tibur Road.
II
Old is the tale—Aesop’s, I think—
Of that famed miller and his son
Whose fortunes were so “on the...Read more of this...
by
George William Russell
I WOULD I could weave in
The colour, the wonder,
The song I conceive in
My heart while I ponder,
And show how it came like
The magi of old
Whose chant was a flame like
The dawn’s voice of gold;
Whose dreams followed near them
A murmur of birds,
And ear still could hear them
Unchanted in words.
...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
"What knight or what vassal will be so bold
As to plunge in the gulf below?
See! I hurl in its depths a goblet of gold,
Already the waters over it flow.
The man who can bring back the goblet to me,
May keep it henceforward,--his own it shall be."
Thus speaks the king, and he hurls from the height
Of the cliffs that, rugged and...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
TO you, sir, this summons I’ve sent,
Pray, whip till the pownie is freathing;
But if you demand what I want,
I honestly answer you—naething.
Ne’er scorn a poor Poet like me,
For idly just living and breathing,
While people of every degree
Are busy employed about—naething.
Poor Centum-per-centum may fast,
And grumble his hurdies their claithing,
He’ll find, when the balance is cast,
...Read more of this...
by
Erin Belieu
It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay
drifting toward me on the T stop, the train
circling the city like a dingy, year-round
Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin
is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound
in the population. it bothers me
because it's summer now and sticky - no rain
to cool things down; heat like a wound
that will not close. Too hot, these...Read more of this...
by
Amy Lowell
I
Over the yawning chimney hangs the fog. Drip
-- hiss -- drip -- hiss --
fall the raindrops on the oaken log which burns, and steams,
and smokes the ceiling beams. Drip -- hiss -- the rain
never stops.
The wide, state bed shivers beneath its velvet coverlet. Above,
dim,
in the smoke, a tarnished coronet gleams dully. Overhead
hammers and chinks
the rain....Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on the 8th of January 1881,
That a terrific gale along the English Channel ran,
And spread death and disaster in its train,
Whereby the "Indian Chief" vessel was tossed on the raging main.
She was driven ashore on the Goodwin Sands,
And the good captain fearlessly issued hie commands,
"Come, my men, try snd save the vessel, work with all your might,"
Although...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
Hide not that sprouting lipp, nor kill
The juicy bloome with bashfull skill:
Know it is an amorous dewe
That swells to court thy corall hewe,
And what a blemish you esteeme
To other eyes a pearle may seeme
Whose watery growth is not above
The thrifty seize that pearles doe love,
And doth so well become that part
That chance may seeme a secret art.
Doth any judge...Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
When that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone
Unto that watery desolation;
Devoutly to thy Closet-gods then pray,
That my wing'd ship may meet no Remora.
Those deities which circum-walk the seas,
And look upon our dreadful passages,
Will from all dangers re-deliver me,
For one drink-offering poured out by thee,
Mercy and Truth live with thee! and forbear,
In my short absence, to unsluice a tear;
But...Read more of this...
by
C S Lewis
Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
-A meadow whipt flat with...Read more of this...
by
Ann Taylor
Go, go, my naughty girl, and kiss
Your little sister dear;
I must not have such things as this,
And noisy quarrels here.
What! little children scratch and fight,
That ought to be so mild;
Oh! Mary, it's a shocking sight
To see an angry child.
I can't imagine, for my part,
The reason for your folly;
She did not do you any hurt
By...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient tree;
Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!
'O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.
'Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou...Read more of this...
by
Ellis Parker Butler
Captain O’Hare was a mariner brave;
He refused to abandon his ship;
A hero, he sleeps in a watery grave—
And his widow is now Mrs. Bipp,
Haw! Haw!
His widow is now Mrs. Bipp!
Henri Dupont was a fearless young ace;
Five thousand feet up he was hit;
Each year on his grave pretty flowers we place—
And his widow is now Mrs. Schmitt,
Haw! Haw!
His...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.
It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
The train in running across the weald has fallen into a steadier stroke
So even, it beats like silence, and sky and earth in one unbroke
Embrace of darkness lie around, and crushed between them all the loose
And littered lettering of leaves and hills and houses closed, and we
can use
The open book of landscape no more, for the covers of darkness have
shut...Read more of this...
by
Oliver Wendell Holmes
WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,
Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?
Old age, the graybeard! Well,...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on Friday the 2nd of March, in the year of 1894,
That the Storm Fiend did loudly laugh and roar
Along the Black Isle and the Kessack Ferry shore,
Whereby six men were drowned, which their friends will deplore.
The accident is the most serious that has occurred for many years,
And their relatives no doubt will shed many tears,
Because the accident...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
Fair was the evening and brightly the sun
Was shining on desert and grove,
Sweet were the breezes and balmy the flowers
And cloudless the heavens above.
It was Arabia's distant land
And peaceful was the hour;
Two youthful figures lay reclined
Deep in a shady bower.
One was a boy of just fourteen
Bold beautiful and bright;
Soft raven curls hung clustering round
A brow of marble white.
The...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Through seas of dreams and seas of phantasies,
Through seas of solitudes and vacancies,
And through my Self, the deepest of the seas,
I strive to thee, Nirvana.
Oh long ago the billow-flow of sense,
Aroused by passion's windy vehemence,
Upbore me out of depths to heights intense,
But not to thee, Nirvana.
By waves swept on, I learned to ride the waves.
I served my masters till...Read more of this...
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