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Famous Whispers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Pope, Alexander
...s,
With sure Returns of still expected Rhymes.
Where-e'er you find the cooling Western Breeze,
In the next Line, it whispers thro' the Trees;
If Chrystal Streams with pleasing Murmurs creep,
The Reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with Sleep.
Then, at the last, and only Couplet fraught
With some unmeaning Thing they call a Thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the Song,
That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull Rhimes, ...Read more of this...



by Rich, Adrienne
...r of grain 

for the return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I keep choosing 

are these words, these whispers, conversations
from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...gh the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still
With great Apollo's kisses, and the fir
Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher
Whom men call Boreas,...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...stward, thus a chorus sang:

 "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking the...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...away and lost'
He, shaking his gray head pathetically,
Repeated muttering `cast away and lost;'
Again in deeper inward whispers `lost!' 

But Enoch yearn'd to see her face again;
`If I might look on her sweet face gain
And know that she is happy.' So the thought
Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth,
At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.
There he sat down gazing on all below;
There did a thousand memories roll upon hi...Read more of this...



by Hugo, Victor
...each day. 
 But none the less the world believed that they 
 Unto the powers of hell their souls had sold. 
 Even in whispers men each other told 
 The details of the pact which they had signed 
 With that dark power, the foe of human kind; 
 In whispers, for the crowd had mortal dread 
 Of them so high, and woes that they had spread. 
 One might be vengeance and the other hate, 
 Yet lived they side by side, in powerful state 
 And close alliance. All the people ne...Read more of this...

by Lewis, C S
...er down into the breast. 
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing 
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest. 
The tremor on the rippled pool of memory 
That from each smell in widening circles goes, 
The pleasure and the pang --can angels measure it? 
An angel has no nose.

The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes 
On death, and why, they utterly know; but not 
The hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries. 
The ripe peach f...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ou may have to wait 
So long as to be sorry; though I doubt it, 
For you are not at home in your new Eden 
Where chilly whispers of a likely frost
Accumulate already in the air. 
I think a touch of ermine, Hamilton, 
Would be for you in your autumnal mood 
A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders. 

HAMILTON

If so it is you think, you may as well
Give over thinking. We are done with ermine. 
What I fear most is not the multitude, 
But those who are to lo...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...ropelled, blind, has no notion
Of itself. It is inertia that once
Acknowledged saps all activity, secret or public:
Whispers of the word that can't be understood
But can be felt, a chill, a blight
Moving outward along the capes and peninsulas
Of your nervures and so to the archipelagoes
And to the bathed, aired secrecy of the open sea.
This is its negative side. Its positive side is
Making you notice life and the stresses
That only seemed to go away, but now,
As t...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...leaving, 
To troops out of me, out of the army, the war arising—they the tasks I have set
 promulging,
To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing—their affection me more clearly
 explaining, 
To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of their brains
 trying, 
So I pass—a little time vocal, visible, contrary; 
Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for—(death making me really undying;) 
The best of me then when no longer visible—for toward that I...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...and naked; 
I am mad for it to be in contact with me. 

2
The smoke of my own breath; 
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine; 
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood
 and air through my lungs;
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore, and
 dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn; 
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice, words loos’d to the eddies
 of the wind...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...Dedication

Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
and whispers of a summer sea.


Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
 Eager she wields her spade; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
 The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
 Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
 Empty of all delight!

Chat on, ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...e gold among the crowd,
     Who now with anxious wonder scan,
     And sharper glance, the dark gray man;
     Till whispers rose among the throng,
     That heart so free, and hand so strong,
     Must to the Douglas blood belong.
     The old men marked and shook the head,
     To see his hair with silver spread,
     And winked aside, and told each son
     Of feats upon the English done,
     Ere Douglas of the stalwart hand
     Was exiled from his native lan...Read more of this...

by Warton, Thomas
...**** and hollow sounds; secure, self-blest,
There oft thou listen´st to the wild uproar
Of fleets encount´ring, that in whispers low
Ascends the rocky summit, where thou dwell´st
Remote from man, conversing with the spheres!
O, lead me, queen sublime, to solemn glooms
Congenial with my soul; to cheerless shades,
To ruin´d seats, to twilight cells and bowers,
Where thoughtful Melancholy loves to muse
Her favorite midnight haunts. The laughing scenes
Of purple Spring, where...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...try; none; 
If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls.' 
'Yet pause,' I said: 'for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 
To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be, 
If more an...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...irth-night Beau,
(That ev'n in Slumber caus'd her Cheek to glow)
Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay,
And thus in Whispers said, or seem'd to say.

Fairest of Mortals, thou distinguish'd Care
Of thousand bright Inhabitants of Air!
If e'er one Vision touch'd thy infant Thought,
Of all the Nurse and all the Priest have taught, 
Of airy Elves by Moonlight Shadows seen,
The silver Token, and the circled Green,
Or Virgins visited by Angel-Pow'rs,
With Golden Crowns and W...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...settle finally our fragile peace.



I did not want to go. You did. I could not stay alone. It was

The whispers said and never ceased, ‘the beginning of the end’.

Now, thirty odd years on, I do not know at all, no certainty is certain,

No narrative, however neat, is sure. I know how listlessly we tried

Again in Leeds, a tiny flat with the white telephone that never rang

Next to the Christian Science Church my sad grandmother trekked to with

Her c...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...d visionary Vales; 
To weeping Grottos, and to hoary Caves;
Where Angel-Forms are seen, and Voices heard,
Sigh'd in low Whispers, that abstract the Soul,
From outward Sense, far into Worlds remote.

NOW, when the Western Sun withdraws the Day, 
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the Sky,
In her chill Progress, checks the straggling Beams,
And robs them of their gather'd, vapoury, Prey,
Where Marshes stagnate, and where Rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling Fogs, and swim along 
T...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
 A
current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
 Gentile
or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in st...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

 Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Whispers poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs