Famous Woody Poems by Famous Poets

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

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133. The Brigs of Ayr

...hoary show,
By Hospitality with cloudless brow:
Next followed Courage with his martial stride,
From where the Feal wild-woody coverts hide; 9
Benevolence, with mild, benignant air,
A female form, came from the tow’rs of Stair; 10
Learning and Worth in equal measures trode,
From simple Catrine, their long-lov’d abode: 11
Last, white-rob’d Peace, crown’d with a hazel wreath,
To rustic Agriculture did bequeath
The broken, iron instruments of death:
At sight of whom our Sprites f...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Forest Hymn

...came forth 
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 

There have been holy men who hid themselves 
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave 
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived 
The generation born with them, nor seemed 
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 
Around them;---and there have been holy men 
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
But let me often to these solitudes 
Retire, and in thy presence reassure 
My feeble virtue...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

A Forest Hymn

...me forth 
From thine own bosom and shall have no end. 90 

There have been holy men who hid themselves 
Deep in the woody wilderness and gave 
Their lives to thought and prayer till they outlived 
The generation born with them nor seemed 
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 95 
Around them;¡ªand there have been holy men 
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
But let me often to these solitudes 
Retire and in thy presence reassure 
My feeble virtue. ...Read more of this...
by Bryant, William Cullen

A Little History

...kes.
On the plane he gets tipsy, tries to seduce the stewardess.
People in the Midwest keep telling him reminds them of Woody
 Allen.
He wonders what that means. I'm funny? A sort of nervous
 intellectual type from New York? A Jew?
Around this time somebody accuses him of not being Jewish enough.
It is said by resentful colleagues that his parents changed their
 name from something that sounded more Jewish.
Everything he publishes is scrutinized with reference to "the
 Jewish...Read more of this...
by Lehman, David

A poem on divine revelation

...u O shepherds, and ye graces fair 
With comely presence honouring the day, 
Far hence I go to some sequest'red vale 
By woody hill or shady mountain side, 
Where far from converse and the social band, 
My days shall pass inglorious away: [3] 
But this shall be my exultation still 
My chiefest merit and my only joy, 
That when the hunter on some western hill, 
Or furzy glade shall see my grassy tomb, 
And know the stream which mourns unheeded by, 
He for a moment shall repress...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


A poem on the rising glory of America

...ll and mountain rang'd, 
Fierce as the tygers and the wolves they flew. 
Thus lives th' Arabian and the Tartar wild 
In woody wastes which never felt the plough; 
But agriculture crowns our happy land, 
And plants our colonies from north to south, 
From Cape Breton far as the Mexic bay 
From th' Eastern shores to Missisippi's stream. 
Famine to us unknown, rich plenty reigns 
And pours her blessings with a lavish hand. 



LEANDER. 
Nor less from golden commerce flow the stre...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry

A Subalterns Love Song

...ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surry twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and th...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John

Alexander And Zenobia

...nd let us hope to meet again
Beneath our Gondal's sky.'

'Zenobia, do you remember
A little lonely spring
Among Exina's woody hills
Where blackbirds used to sing,

'And when they ceased as daylight faded
From the dusky sky
The pensive nightingale began
Her matchless melody?

'Sweet bluebells used to flourish there
And tall trees waved on high,
And through their ever sounding leaves
The soft wind used to sigh.

'At morning we have often played
Beside that lonely well;
At eveni...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Anne

Beowulf (Modern English)

...ting their hero, their beloved lord.
Then they began to kindle the greatest corpse-fire,
the warrior on the barrow. A woody reek mounted to the sky,
swart over the flames, a roaring fire, wound with weeping—
the stirring wind subsided—until it had broken
the bone-house, hot in the breast (ll. 3137-48a)

Dreary at heart, they lamented their mind-cares,
the killing of their lord, likewise a sorrowful chant
a Geat woman with bound hair sang sorrow-caring
for Beowulf. S...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

Come Into The Garden Maud

...o sweet 
 That whenever a March-wind sighs 
He sets the jewelprint of your feet 
 In violets blue as your eyes, 
To the woody hollows in which we meet 
 And the valleys of Paradise. 

The slender acacia would not shake 
 One long milk-bloom on the tree; 
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake, 
 As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; 
But the rose was awake all night for your sake, 
 Knowing your promise to me; 
The lilies and roses were all awake, 
 They sigh'd for the dawn a...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...ade, 
 Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
 A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend, 
 Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
 Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops 
 The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung; 

Which to our general sire gave prospect large 
Into his nether empire neighbouring round. 
And higher than that wall a circling row 
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit, 
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue, 
Appeared, with gay enamelle...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...d calm. 
On to their morning's rural work they haste, 
Among sweet dews and flowers; where any row 
Of fruit-trees over-woody reached too far 
Their pampered boughs, and needed hands to check 
Fruitless embraces: or they led the vine 
To wed her elm; she, spoused, about him twines 
Her marriageable arms, and with him brings 
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn 
His barren leaves. Them thus employed beheld 
With pity Heaven's high King, and to him called 
Raphael, the so...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 08

..., by the hand he took me raised, 
And over fields and waters, as in air 
Smooth-sliding without step, last led me up 
A woody mountain; whose high top was plain, 
A circuit wide, enclosed, with goodliest trees 
Planted, with walks, and bowers; that what I saw 
Of Earth before scarce pleasant seemed. Each tree, 
Loaden with fairest fruit that hung to the eye 
Tempting, stirred in me sudden appetite 
To pluck and eat; whereat I waked, and found 
Before mine eyes all real, as th...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...late 
Columbus found the American, so girt 
With feathered cincture; naked else, and wild 
Among the trees on isles and woody shores. 
Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part 
Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, 
They sat them down to weep; nor only tears 
Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within 
Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate, 
Mistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore 
Their inward state of mind, calm region once 
And full of pea...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Second Book

...Now hungering first, and to himself thus said:—
 "Where will this end? Four times ten days I have passed
Wandering this woody maze, and human food
Nor tasted, nor had appetite. That fast
To virtue I impute not, or count part
Of what I suffer here. If nature need not,
Or God support nature without repast, 
Though needing, what praise is it to endure?
But now I feel I hunger; which declares
Nature hath need of what she asks. Yet God
Can satisfy that need some other way,
Though ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Child and the Mariner

...And he -- who knew no music like the wash 
Of waves against a ship, or wind in shrouds -- 
Heard then the music on that woody shore 
Of nightingales,and feared to leave the deck, 
He thought 'twas sailing into Paradise. 
To hear these stories all we urchins placed 
Our pennies in that seaman's ready hand; 
Until one morn he signed on for a long cruise, 
And sailed away -- we never saw him more. 
Could such a man sink in the sea unknown? 
Nay, he had found a land with somethin...Read more of this...
by Davies, William Henry

The Cremona Violin

...lanting, youthful sound-holes 
through
The belly of fine, vigorous pine
Mellowed each note and blew
It out again with a woody flavour
Tanged and fragrant as fir-trees are
When breezes in their needles jar.
The varnish was an orange-brown
Lustered like glass that's long laid down
Under a crumbling villa stone.
Purfled stoutly, with mitres which point
Straight up the corners. Each curve 
and joint
Clear, and bold, and thin.
Such was Herr Theodore's violin.
Seven o'clock, the Co...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Crystal

...ur vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded for to sit upon a bough,
Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree
And muse in that gaunt place, -- 'twas then my heart,
Deep in the meditative dark, cried out:

"Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,
Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news
From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,
Sweet seers, and stella...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

The Idiot Boy

...hough yet their tongues were still.   The pony, Betty, and her boy,  Wind slowly through the woody dale;  And who is she, be-times abroad,  That hobbles up the steep rough road?  Who is it, but old Susan Gale?   Long Susan lay deep lost in thought,  And many dreadful fears beset her,  Both for her messenger and nurse;  And as her mind grew worse and worse,  Her bo...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Wanderings of Oisin: Book I

...
And Niamh blew three merry notes
Out of a little silver trump;
And then an answering whispering flew
Over the bare and woody land,
A whisper of impetuous feet,
And ever nearer, nearer grew;
And from the woods rushed out a band
Of men and ladies, hand in hand,
And singing, singing all together;
Their brows were white as fragrant milk,
Their cloaks made out of yellow silk,
And trimmed with many a crimson feather;
And when they saw the cloak I wore
Was dim with mire of a mortal...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

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