Famous Woodlands Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Sycamores

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 In the outskirts of the village 
On the river's winding shores 
Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

One long century hath been numbered, 
And another half-way told 
Since the rustic Irish gleeman 
Broke for them the virgin mould. 

Deftly set to Celtic music 
At his violin's sound they grew, 
Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
Making Amphion's...Read more of this...

A Love Song from the North

by Sarojini Naidu
 Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha,
Wouldst thou recall to my heart, papeeha,
Dreams of delight that are gone,
When swift to my side came the feet of my lover
With stars of the dusk and the dawn?
I see the soft wings of the clouds on the river,
And jewelled with raindrops the mango-leaves quiver,
And tender boughs flower on the plain.....
But what...Read more of this...

212. Song—Raving Winds Around her Blowing

by Robert Burns
 RAVING winds around her blowing,
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing,
By a river hoarsely roaring,
Isabella stray’d deploring—


“Farewell, hours that late did measure
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure;
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,
Cheerless night that knows no morrow!


“O’er the past too fondly wandering,
On the hopeless future pondering;
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes,
Fell despair my fancy seizes.


“Life, thou soul of every blessing,
Load to misery...Read more of this...

With Scindia to Delphi

by Rudyard Kipling
 More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story: --


The wreath of banquet overnight lay...Read more of this...

The Famine

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Oh the long and dreary Winter!
Oh the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
Hardly from his buried wigwam
Could the hunter force a passage;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes
Vainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for...Read more of this...

My Orchad in Linden Lea

by William Barnes
 'Ithin the woodlands, flow'ry gleaded,
By the woak tree's mossy moot,
The sheenen grass-bleades, timber-sheaded,
Now do quiver under voot;
An' birds do whissle over head,
An' water's bubblen in its bed,
An' there vor me the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.
When leaves that leately wer a-springen
Now do feade 'ithin the copse,
An' painted birds do hush their zingen
Up upon the timber's tops;
An'...Read more of this...

I Now O Friend Whom Noiselessly The Snows

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:

* * * * *

The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;
Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees
And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;
A disused quarry, paved with...Read more of this...

496. Song—My Nanie's awa

by Robert Burns
 NOW in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays,
And listens the lambkins that bleat o’er her braes;
While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw,
But to me it’s delightless—my Nanie’s awa.


The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn,
And violetes bathe in the weet o’ the morn;
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
They mind me o’ Nanie—and Nanie’s awa.


Thou lav’rock that...Read more of this...

In Memoriam A. H. H.: 99. Risest thou thus dim dawn again

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
So loud with voices of the birds,
So thick with lowings of the herds,
Day, when I lost the flower of men;
Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red
On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast
By meadows breathing of the past,
And woodlands holy to the dead;
Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
A song that slights the coming care,
And Autumn laying...Read more of this...

342. Song—Sweet Afton

by Robert Burns
 FLOW gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.


Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,
I charge you, disturb not my slumbering Fair.


How lofty, sweet Afton,...Read more of this...

Flowers in Winter

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 How strange to greet, this frosty morn, 
In graceful counterfeit of flower, 
These children of the meadows, born 
Of sunshine and of showers! 

How well the conscious wood retains 
The pictures of its flower-sown home, 
The lights and shades, the purple stains, 
And golden hues of bloom! 

It was a happy thought to bring 
To the dark season's frost...Read more of this...

The Earth Breath

by George William Russell
 FROM the cool and dark-lipped furrows
 Breathes a dim delight
Through the woodland’s purple plumage
 To the diamond night.
Aureoles of joy encircle
 Every blade of grass
Where the dew-fed creatures silent
 And enraptured pass.
And the restless ploughman pauses,
 Turns and, wondering,
Deep beneath his rustic habit
 Finds himself a king;
For a fiery moment looking
 With the eyes of God
Over fields a slave...Read more of this...

Storm and Sunlight

by Siegfried Sassoon
 I

In barns we crouch, and under stacks of straw, 
Harking the storm that rides a hurtling legion 
Up the arched sky, and speeds quick heels of panic 
With growling thunder loosed in fork and clap 
That echoes crashing thro’ the slumbrous vault.
The whispering woodlands darken: vulture Gloom 
Stoops, menacing the skeltering flocks of Light, 
Where the gaunt shepherd shakes...Read more of this...

The Deserted Cottage

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Who dwelt in yonder lonely Cot,
Why is it thus forsaken?
It seems, by all the world forgot,
Above its path the high grass grows,
And through its thatch the northwind blows
--Its thatch, by tempests shaken.

And yet, it tops a verdant hill
By Summer gales surrounded:
Beneath its door a shallow rill
Runs brawling to the vale below,
And near it sweetest flowrets grow
By banks of willow...Read more of this...

Written On Sunday Morning

by Robert Southey
 Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
I to the Woodlands wend, and there
In lovely Nature see the GOD OF LOVE.
The swelling organ's peal
Wakes not my soul to zeal,
Like the wild music of the wind-swept grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Rouse not such ardor in my breast,
As where the noon-tide beam
Flash'd from the broken stream,
Quick vibrates on the...Read more of this...

Dirge

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon,
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,— the...Read more of this...

The Call of the Winds

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Ho, come out with the wind of spring,
And step it blithely in woodlands waking; 
Friend am I of each growing thing
From the gray sod into sunshine breaking; 
Mine is the magic of twilights dim, 
Of violets blue on the still pool's rim, 
Mine is the breath of the blossoms young 
Sweetest of fragrances storied or sung­
Come, ye earth-children, weary...Read more of this...

Second Ode to the Nightingale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 BLEST be thy song, sweet NIGHTINGALE, 
Lorn minstrel of the lonely vale ! 
Where oft I've heard thy dulcet strain 
In mournful melody complain; 
When in the POPLAR'S trembling shade, 
At Evening's purple hour I've stray'd, 
While many a silken folded flow'r 
Wept on its couch of Gossamer, 
And many a time in pensive mood 
Upon the upland mead...Read more of this...

The Bonnie Sidlaw Hills

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Bonnie Clara, will you go to the bonnie Sidlaw hills
And pu' the blooming heather, and drink from their rills?
There the cranberries among the heather grow,
Believe me, dear Clara, as black as the crow. 

Chorus --

Then, bonnie Clara, will you go
And wander with me to and fro?
And with joy our hearts will o'erflow
When we go to the bonnie Sidlaws O....Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXVI: Lead Me Sicilian Maids

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Lead me, Sicilian Maids, to haunted bow'rs,
While yon pale moon displays her faintest beams
O'er blasted woodlands, and enchanted streams,
Whose banks infect the breeze with pois'nous flow'rs.
Ah! lead me, where the barren mountain tow'rs,
Where no sounds echo, but the night-owl's screams,
Where some lone spirit of the desart gleams,
And lurid horrors wing the fateful hours!
Now goaded frenzy grasps my shrinking brain,
Her...Read more of this...

To the River Charles

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!

Four long years of mingled feeling,
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.

Thou hast taught me, Silent River!
Many a lesson, deep and long;
Thou hast been a generous giver;
I can give...Read more of this...

Boadicea

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 

`They that scorn...Read more of this...

The Walkers

by Robert William Service
 (He speaks.)

Walking, walking, oh, the joy of walking!
Swinging down the tawny lanes with head held high;
Striding up the green hills, through the heather stalking,
Swishing through the woodlands where the brown leaves lie;
Marveling at all things -- windmills gaily turning,
Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold;
Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet berries burning,
Wedge of geese high-flying in the sky's clear cold,
Light...Read more of this...

Pastoral Stanzas

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHEN AURORA'S soft blushes o'erspread the blue hill,
And the mist dies away at the glances of morn;
When the birds join the music that floats on the rill,
And the beauties of spring the young woodlands adorn. 

To breathe the pure air and enliven my soul,
I bound from my cottage exulting and gay;
No care to molest me, no pow'r to controul,
I...Read more of this...

Baldovan

by William Topaz McGonagall
 The scenery of Baldovan
Is most lovely to see,
Near by Dighty Water,
Not far from Dundee. 

'Tis health for any one
To be walking there,
O'er the green swards of Baldovan,
And in the forests fair. 

There the blackbird and the mavis
Together merrily do sing
In the forest of Baldovan,
Making the woodlands to ring. 

'Tis delightful to hear them
On a fine summer day,
Carolling their cheerful...Read more of this...

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