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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Wisdom of Hafiz: the Philosopher Takes to Racing

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo, 
Remember, it's seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow; 
Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow. 
If ever an owner should tell you, "Back mine" -- don't you be such a flat. 
He knows his own...Read more of this...

Whispers of Immortality

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,

He...Read more of this...

Dare You?

by Edward Rowland Sill
Doubting Thomas and loving John,
Behind the others walking on:—

“Tell me now, John, dare you be
One of the minority?
To be lonely in your thought,
Never visited nor sought,
Shunned with secret shrug, to go
Thro’ the world, esteemed its foe;
27To be singled out and hissed,
Pointed at as one unblessed,
Warned against in whispers faint,
Lest the children catch a taint;
To bear off your titles well,—
Heretic and...Read more of this...

Whispers of Heavenly Death

by Walt Whitman
 WHISPERS of heavenly death, murmur’d I hear; 
Labial gossip of night—sibilant chorals; 
Footsteps gently ascending—mystical breezes, wafted soft and low; 
Ripples of unseen rivers—tides of a current, flowing, forever flowing; 
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see, skyward, great cloud-masses; 
Mournfully, slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing; 
With, at...Read more of this...

The Song of the Brook

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Oh, what would you have, you splendid sun,
  With your restless eyes of fire?
And why do you lean o'er the lilies pale?
  What more can your heart desire?
You've crimsoned the rays in the heart of the rose,
  You've drunk up the dewdrops all;
And down in the meadows your golden light
  Has gilded the daisies tall.
The thirsty...Read more of this...

Male Fashions for 1799

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Crops like hedgehogs, high-crown'd hats,
Whispers like Jew MOSES ;
Padded collars, thick cravats,
And cheeks as red as roses.

Faces painted pink and brown ;
Waistcoats strip'd and gaudy ;
Sleeves thrice doubled thick with down,
And straps to brace the body.

Short great-coats that reach the knees,
Boots like French postillion ;
Worn the G----- race to please,
But laugh'd at by the million.

Square-toed shoes, with silken strings,
Pantaloons...Read more of this...

The Lord of Burleigh

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 IN her ear he whispers gaily, 
'If my heart by signs can tell, 
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 
And I think thou lov'st me well.' 
She replies, in accents fainter, 
'There is none I love like thee.' 
He is but a landscape-painter, 
And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter, 
Presses his without reproof: 
Leads...Read more of this...

Lycidas

by John Milton
 In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, 
then in their height.


YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter...Read more of this...

Upon The Hill And Grove At Bill-borow

by Andrew Marvell
 To the Lord Fairfax.

See how the arched Earth does here
Rise in a perfect Hemisphere!
The stiffest Compass could not strike
A line more circular and like;
Nor softest Pensel draw a Brow.
So equal as this Hill does bow.
It seems as for a Model laid,
And that the World by it was made.

Here learn ye Mountains more unjust,
Which to abrupter greatness thrust,
That do with...Read more of this...

The Wizard Way

by Aleister Crowley
 [Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]


Velvet soft the night-star glowed 
Over the untrodden road, 
Through the giant glades of yew 
Where its ray fell light as dew 
Lighting up the shimmering veil 
Maiden pure and aery frail 
That the spiders wove to hide 
Blushes of the sylvan bride 
Earth, that trembled with delight 
At the male caress of Night. 

Velvet...Read more of this...

A Summer Afternoon

by James Whitcomb Riley
 A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm sun showers in the...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Lewis Carroll
 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...Read more of this...

The Gardener XLIII: No My Friends

by Rabindranath Tagore
 No, my friends, I shall never be an
ascetic, whatever you may say.
I shall never be and ascetic if she
does not take the vow with me.
It is my firm resolve that if I 
cannot find a shady shelter and a 
companion for my penance, I shall
never turn ascetic.
No, my friends, I shall never leave
my hearth and home, and retire into
the...Read more of this...

To Clementina Black

by Amy Levy
 More blest than was of old Diogenes,
I have not held my lantern up in vain.
Not mine, at least, this evil--to complain:
"There is none honest among all of these."

Our hopes go down that sailed before the breeze;
Our creeds upon the rock are rent in twain;
Something it is, if at the last remain
One floating spar cast up by hungry seas.

The secret...Read more of this...

Delilah

by Rudyard Kipling
 We have another viceroy now, -- those days are dead and done
Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.

Delilah Aberyswith was a lady -- not too young --
With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,
With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.

By reason of her marriage...Read more of this...

Little World

by Marina Tsvetaeva
 Children - are staring of eyes so frightful, 
Mischievous legs on a wooden floor, 
Children - is sun in the gloomy motives, 
Hypotheses' of happy sciences world. 

Eternal disorder in the ring's gold, 
Tender word's whispers in semi-sleep, 
On the wall in a cozy child's room, the dreaming 
Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep. 

Children - is evening, evening...Read more of this...

In The Small Hours

by Wole Soyinka
Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers
Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins
Of marooned mariners, captives
Of Circe's sultry notes. The barman
Dispenses igneous potions ?
Somnabulist, the band plays on.

Cocktail mixer, silvery fish
Dances for limpet clients.
Applause is steeped in lassitude,
Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers
And artful eyelash of the androgynous.
The...Read more of this...

To Certain Journeymen

by Carl Sandburg
 UNDERTAKERS, hearse drivers, grave diggers,
I speak to you as one not afraid of your business.

You handle dust going to a long country,
You know the secret behind your job is the same whether
you lower the coffin with modern, automatic machinery,
well-oiled and noiseless, or whether the
body is laid in by naked hands and then covered
by the shovels.

Your day's work is done...Read more of this...

Abt Vogler

by Robert Browning
 Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
Should rush into sight at...Read more of this...

The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmiths Son

by Vachel Lindsay
 THE North Star whispers: "You are one 
Of those whose course no chance can change. 
You blunder, but are not undone, 
Your spirit-task is fixed and strange. 

"When here you walk, a bloodless shade, 
A singer all men else forget. 
Your chants of hammer, forge and spade 
Will move the prarie-village yet. 

"That young, stiff-necked, reviling town 
Beholds your...Read more of this...

The Dove's Visit

by Anonymous
I knew a little, sickly child,The long, long summer’s day,When all the world was green and bright,Alone in bed to lay;There used to come a little doveBefore his window small,[Pg 011]And sing to him with her sweet voice,Out of the fir-tree tall.And when the sick child better grew,And he could creep along,Close to that window he would come,And listen to...Read more of this...

The Divine Lullaby

by Eugene Field
 I hear Thy voice, dear Lord;
I hear it by the stormy sea
When winter nights are black and wild,
And when, affright, I call to Thee;
It calms my fears and whispers me,
"Sleep well, my child."

I hear Thy voice, dear Lord,
In singing winds, in falling snow,
The curfew chimes, the midnight bell.
"Sleep well, my child," it murmurs low;
"The guardian angels come and go,--
O...Read more of this...

Mollymook

by Dale Harcombe
 All week, in this rented house, 
 sea spray and whispers of wind 
 weave through the eucalypts, 
 like a Sondheim melody.
 Through the pewter leaves
 the sea glimpsed from the wooden deck 
 is, at times, teal silk. 
 Other days it is grey.

 Longing stirs like waves 
 about to break on the shore
 and sometimes...Read more of this...

The Poet

by Hermann Hesse
 Only on me, the lonely one,
The unending stars of the night shine,
The stone fountain whispers its magic song,
To me alone, to me the lonely one
The colorful shadows of the wandering clouds
Move like dreams over the open countryside.
Neither house nor farmland,
Neither forest nor hunting privilege is given to me,
What is mine belongs to no one,
The plunging brook behind the veil...Read more of this...

Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   He loved the Plant with a keen delight,
     A passionate fervour, strange to see,
   Tended it ardently, day and night,
     Yet never a flower lit up the tree.

   The leaves were succulent, thick, and green,
     And, sessile, out of the snakelike...Read more of this...

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