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Famous Woodland Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Poe, Edgar Allan
...e,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy-
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours-
Yet all the beauty- all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers-
Adorn yon world afar, afar-
The wandering star.

'Twas a sweet time for Nesace- for there
He...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...mountain-flowers,
And thorny balls, each three in one,
The chestnuts throw on our path in showers!
For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun,
These early November hours,

XII.

That crimson the creeper's leaf across
Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt,
O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss,
And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped
Elf-needled mat of moss,

XIII.

By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged
Last evening---nay, in to-day's first dew
Yon sudden coral...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...watched 
The flying mirrors for a mile or so, 
Till to the changing glimpse, now sharp, now faint, 
They gave me of the woodland over west, 
A gleam of long-forgotten strenuous years
Came back, when we were Red Men on the trail, 
With Morgan for the big chief Wocky-Bocky; 
And yawning out of that I set myself 
To face again the loud monotonous ride 
That lay before me like a vista drawn
Of bag-racks to the fabled end of things....Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...y.'

So turned they back, and feared to look behind,
And told the timid swain how they had seen
Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined,
And no man dared to cross the open green,
And on that day no olive-tree was slain,
Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain,

Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound
Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail,
Hoping that he some comrade new had found,
And gat no answer,...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

 Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the bur...Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...e in the dim cell lying beyond
Their upper lids?--Hist! "O for Hermes' wand
To touch this flower into human shape!
That woodland Hyacinthus could escape
From his green prison, and here kneeling down
Call me his queen, his second life's fair crown!
Ah me, how I could love!--My soul doth melt
For the unhappy youth--Love! I have felt
So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender
To what my own full thoughts had made too tender,
That but for tears my life had fled away!--
Ye deaf an...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...t.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of Octob...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...lestine, he is not spent,— 
 With age he wrestles, firm in his intent. 
 
 III. 
 
 IN THE FOREST. 
 
 If in the woodland traveller there had been 
 That eve, who lost himself, strange sight he'd seen. 
 Quite in the forest's heart a lighted space 
 Arose to view; in that deserted place 
 A lone, abandoned hall with light aglow 
 The long neglect of centuries did show. 
 The castle-towers of Corbus in decay 
 Were girt by weeds and growths that had their way. 
...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...is brazen shield;

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancie...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...tar of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...me startled Dryad-maid
In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.

O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!
Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
The evening chimes, the convent's vesper bell,
Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
Alas! ...Read more of this...

by Whittier, John Greenleaf
...the loose snow-banks, wrestling rolled, 
Then toiled again the cavalcade 
O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine, 
And woodland paths that wound between 
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 
From every barn a team afoot, 
At every house a new recruit, 
Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 
Haply the watchful young men saw 
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 
And curious eyes of merry girls, 
Lifting their hands in mock defence 
Against the snow-ball's compliments...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ing hand.
The obelisk, the pyramid ascended,
The Hermes stood, the column sprang on high,
The reed poured forth the woodland melody,
Immortal song on victor's deeds attended.

The fairest flowers that decked the earth,
Into a nosegay, with wise choice combined,
Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;
Into a garland then were nosegays twined,
And from the works that mortal hands had made,
A second, nobler art was now displayed.
The child of beauty, self-suffi...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take
Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
His eyes half shut, - he is ...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...t,
     And Deanstown lies behind them cast;
     They rise, the bannered towers of Doune,
     They sink in distant woodland soon;
     Blair-Drummond sees the hoofs strike fire,
     They sweep like breeze through Ochtertyre;
     They mark just glance and disappear
     The lofty brow of ancient Kier;
     They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides
     Dark Forth! amid thy sluggish tides,
     And on the opposing shore take ground
     With plash, with scrambl...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...lled; 
And after these had comforted the blood 
With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts-- 
Now talking of their woodland paradise, 
The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns; 
Now mocking at the much ungainliness, 
And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark-- 
Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang: 

`Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bend the brier! 
A star in heaven, a star within the mere! 
Ay, ay, O ay--a star was my desire, 
And one was far ap...Read more of this...

by Thomson, James
...
Then Woodcocks, o'er the fluctuating Main,
That glimmers to the Glimpses of the Moon,
Stretch their long Voyage to the woodland Glade: 
Where, wheeling with uncertain Flight, they mock
The nimble Fowler's Aim. -- Now Nature droops;
Languish the living Herbs, with pale Decay:
And all the various Family of Flowers
Their sunny Robes resign. The falling Fruits, 
Thro' the still Night, forsake the Parent-Bough,
That, in the first, grey, Glances of the Dawn,
Looks wild, an...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by c...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...e heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (Handbook of
Birds of Eastern North America) "it is most at home in secluded
woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable
for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and
exquisite modulation they are unequalled." Its
"water-dripping song"
is justly celebrated.
360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, bu...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...hair was thick with many a curl  That cluster'd round her head.   She had a rustic, woodland air,  And she was wildly clad;  Her eyes were fair, and very fair,  —Her beauty made me glad.   "Sisters and brothers, little maid,  How many may you be?"  "How many? seven in all," she said,  And wondering looked at me.   "A...Read more of this...

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