Famous Wist Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wist poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wist poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wist poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Thomas Hardy
In Memory of one of the Writer's Family who was a Volunteer during the War
with Napoleon
In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.
'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Ainsi l'Hôtel de Ville illumine.")
{VI., May, 1833.}
Behold the ball-room flashing on the sight,
From step to cornice one grand glare of light;
The noise of mirth and revelry resounds,
Like fairy melody on haunted grounds.
But who demands this profuse, wanton glee,
These shouts prolonged and wild festivity—
...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-colored without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said--
I wist not what, saving one word--Delight,
And all her face was...Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
WHAT should I say?
--Since Faith is dead,
And Truth away
From you is fled?
Should I be led
With doubleness?
Nay! nay! mistress.
I promised you,
And you promised me,
To be as true
As I would be.
But since I see
Your double heart,
Farewell my part!...Read more of this...
by
Arthur Hugh Clough
As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:
E'en so—but why the tale reveal
Of those, whom year by year unchanged,
Brief...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,
Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist,
Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided
Light love in a mist.
All day in the sun, when the breezes do all they list,
His soft blue raiment of cloudlike blossom abided
Unrent and unwithered of winds and of rays that kissed.
Blithe-hearted...Read more of this...
by
Carl Sandburg
I LOVE your faces I saw the many years
I drank your milk and filled my mouth
With your home talk, slept in your house
And was one of you.
But a fire burns in my heart.
Under the ribs where pulses thud
And flitting between bones of skull
Is the push, the endless mysterious command,
Saying:
"I leave you behind--
You for the little hills and the years...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
WHEN I was young, we dwelt in a vale
By a misty fen that rang all night,
And thus it was the maidens pale
I knew so well, whose garments trail
Across the reeds to a window light.
The fen had every kind of bloom,
And for every kind there was a face,
And a voice that has sounded in my room
Across the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The Rector met a little lass
Who led a heifer by a rope.
Said he: "Why don't you go to Mass?
Do you not want to please the Pope?"
The village maiden made reply,
As on the rope she ceased to pull:
"My father said this morning I
Must take Paquerette to see the bull."
The Rector frowned. ";Tis wrong, I wist
To leave your prayer-book on the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SWEET are the banks—the banks o’ Doon,
The spreading flowers are fair,
And everything is blythe and glad,
But I am fu’ o’ care.
Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o’ the happy days
When my fause Luve was true:
Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHEN Januar’ wind was blawing cauld,
As to the north I took my way,
The mirksome night did me enfauld,
I knew na where to lodge till day:
By my gude luck a maid I met,
Just in the middle o’ my care,
And kindly she did me invite
To walk into a chamber fair.
I bow’d fu’ low unto this maid,
And...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing
Light and loud through sundawn and the dew's bright trust,
How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying
'Had I wist' -
Surely not the roses, laughing as they kissed,
Not the lovelier laugh of seas in sunshine swaying,
Should have lured my soul to look thereon and list.
Now the wind...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
When you and I were young, the days
Were filled with scent of pink and rose,
And full of joy from dawn till close,
From morning's mist till evening's haze.
And when the robin sung his song
The verdant woodland ways along,
We whistled louder than he sung.
And school was joy, and work was sport
For which the hours were all too short,
When you and I were...Read more of this...
by
Francis Thompson
I fled Him down the nights and down the days
I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated
Adown titanic glooms of chasme d hears
From those strong feet that followed, followed...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool dear sky;
Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound
An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground.
A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight;
Her...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THE LAST time I came o’er the moor,
And left Maria’s dwelling,
What throes, what tortures passing cure,
Were in my bosom swelling:
Condemn’d to see my rival’s reign,
While I in secret languish;
To feel a fire in every vein,
Yet dare not speak my anguish.
Love’s veriest wretch, despairing, I
Fain, fain, my crime would cover;
Th’ unweeting groan, the bursting sigh,
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
GOD gave to me a child in part,
Yet wholly gave the father's heart:
Child of my soul, O whither now,
Unborn, unmothered, goest thou?
You came, you went, and no man wist;
Hapless, my child, no breast you kist;
On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb,
Nor knew the kindly feel of home.
My voice may reach you, O my dear-
A father's voice perhaps the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When I blink sunshine in my eyes
And hail the amber morn,
Before the rosy dew-drop dries
With sparkle on the thorn;
When boughs with robin rapture ring,
And bees hum in the may,--
Then call me young, with heart of Spring,
Though I be grey.
But when no more I know the joy
And urgence of that hour,
As like a happy-hearted boy
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Frost
Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Saave only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.
The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago--
It seems forever--
Since...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
I GAED a waefu’ gate yestreen,
A gate, I fear, I’ll dearly rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o’bonie blue.
’Twas not her golden ringlets bright,
Her lips like roses wat wi’ dew,
Her heaving bosom, lily-white—
It was her een sae bonie blue.
She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d;
She charm’d my soul I...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause Luve was true.
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae...Read more of this...
by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
But now life's face beholden
Seemed bright as heaven's bare brow
With hope of gifts withholden
But now.
From time's full-flowering bough
Each bud spake bloom to embolden
Love's heart, and seal his vow.
Joy's eyes grew deep with olden
Dreams, born he wist not how;
Thought's meanest garb was golden;
But now!...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
A Tale
"Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke."
—Gawin Douglas.
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak' the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THERE was a lass, and she was fair,
At kirk or market to be seen;
When a’ our fairest maids were met,
The fairest maid was bonie Jean.
And aye she wrought her mammie’s wark,
And aye she sang sae merrilie;
The blythest bird upon the bush
Had ne’er a lighter heart than she.
But hawks will rob the tender joys
That bless...Read more of this...
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