Famous Window Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Window poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous window poems. These examples illustrate what a famous window poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Every morning, as I walk down
From my dreary lodgings, toward the town,
I see at a window, near the street,
The face of a woman, fair and sweet,
With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair,
And red lips, warm with the kisses left there.
And she stands there as long as she can see
The man who walks just ahead of me.
At night, when I...Read more of this...
by
D. H. Lawrence
The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters
Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter;
While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.
Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,
Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after
The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to...Read more of this...
by
Joseph Brodsky
I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.
I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
They called me to the Window, for
" 'Twas Sunset" -- Some one said --
I only saw a Sapphire Farm --
And just a Single Herd --
Of Opal Cattle -- feeding far
Upon so vain a Hill --
As even while I looked -- dissolved --
Nor Cattle were -- nor Soil --
But in their stead -- a Sea -- displayed --
And Ships --...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
By my Window have I for Scenery
Just a Sea -- with a Stem --
If the Bird and the Farmer -- deem it a "Pine" --
The Opinion will serve -- for them --
It has no Port, nor a "Line" -- but the Jays --
That split their route to the Sky --
Or a Squirrel, whose giddy Peninsula
May be easier reached --...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light....Read more of this...
by
Allen Ginsberg
At gauzy dusk, thin haze like cigarette smoke
ribbons past Chrysler Building's silver fins
tapering delicately needletopped, Empire State's
taller antenna filmed milky lit amid blocks
black and white apartmenting veil'd sky over Manhattan,
offices new built dark glassed in blueish heaven--The East
50's & 60's covered with castles & watertowers, seven storied
tar-topped house-banks over York Avenue, late may-green...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
THE PAWN-SHOP man knows hunger,
And how far hunger has eaten the heart
Of one who comes with an old keepsake.
Here are wedding rings and baby bracelets,
Scarf pins and shoe buckles, jeweled garters,
Old-fashioned knives with inlaid handles,
Watches of old gold and silver,
Old coins worn with finger-marks.
They tell stories....Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
When from the watercolored window idly you look
Each is but and clear to see, not steep:
So does the neat print in an actual book
Marching as if to true conclusion, reap
The illimitable blue immensely overhead,
The night of the living and the day of the dead.
I drive in an auto all night long to reach
The apple which has sewed the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Warton
Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
THEY are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
LOVERS, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.
He was a...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
This man has taken my Husband's life
And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
To pardon and let him go.
Yet why does he look so young and slim
As he weak and wounded lies?
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
HERE Stuarts once in glory reigned,
And laws for Scotland’s weal ordained;
But now unroof’d their palace stands,
Their sceptre’s sway’d by other hands;
Fallen indeed, and to the earth
Whence groveling reptiles take their birth.
The injured Stuart line is gone,
A race outlandish fills their throne;
An idiot race, to honour lost;
Who know them best despise them most....Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.
One, from his high...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Mansfield
Little Star, little Star,
Come down quick.
The Moon is a bogey-man;
He'll eat you certain if he can.
Little Star, little Star,
Come down quick!
Little Star, little Star,
Whisper "Yes."
The trees are just niggers all,
They look so black, the are so tall.
Little Star, little Star,
Whisper "Yes"
Little Star, little Star,
Gone--all gone.
The bogey-man swallowed you,
The ****** trees are laughing too.
Little Star, little Star,
Gone--all gone....Read more of this...
by
Czeslaw Milosz
I looked out the window at dawn and saw a young apple tree
translucent in brightness.
And when I looked out at dawn once again, an apple tree laden with
fruit stood there.
Many years had probably gone by but I remember nothing of what
happened in my sleep....Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Who is it that, this dark night,
Underneath my window plaineth?
It is one who from thy sight
Being, ah, exiled, disdaineth
Every other vulgar light.
Why, alas, and are you he?
Be not yet those fancies changeed?
Dear, when you find change in me,
Though from me you be estranged,
Let my change to ruin be.
Well, in absence this will die:
Leave to see, and leave to wonder.
Absence...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!
But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
She looks out in the blue morning
and sees a whole wonderful world
she looks out in the morning
and sees a whole world
she leans out of the window
and this is what she sees
a wet rose singing to the sun
with a chorus of red bees
she leans out of the window
and laughs for the window is high
she is in it like a bird...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
As I out of a casement sent
Mine eyes as wand'ring as my thought,
Upon no certayne object bent,
But only what occasion brought,
A sight surpriz'd my hart at last,
Nor knewe I well what made it burne;
Amazement held me then so fast
I had no leasure to discerne.
Sure 'twas a Mortall, but her name,
Or happy parentage or place,
Or (that which did mee most...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I stood before a candy shop
Which with a Christmas radiance shone;
I saw my parents pass and stop
To grin at me and then go on.
The sweets were heaped in gleamy rows;
On each I feasted - what a game!
Against the glass with flatted nose,
Gulping my spittle as it came;
So still I stood, and stared and dreamed,
Savouring sweetness with my eyes,
Devouring dainties...Read more of this...
by
Robinson Jeffers
I chose the bed downstairs by the sea-window for a good death-bed
When we built the house, it is ready waiting,
Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly suspects
Its latter purpose. I often regard it,
With neither dislike nor desire; rather with both, so equalled
That they kill each other and a crystalline interest
Remains alone. We are safe to finish...Read more of this...
by
Eamon Grennan
She's stopped in her southern tracks
Brought haply to this hard knock
When she shoots from the tall spruce
And snaps her neck on the glass.
From the fall grass I gather her
And give her to my silent children
Who give her a decent burial
Under the dogwood in the garden.
They lay their gifs in the grave:
Matches, a clothes-peg, a coin;
Fire paper for her, sprinkle...Read more of this...
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