Famous Zone Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Baptism

by Claude McKay
 Into the furnace let me go alone;
Stay you without in terror of the heat.
I will go naked in--for thus ''tis sweet--
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
I will not quiver in the frailest bone,
You will not note a flicker of defeat;
My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet,
My mouth give utterance to any moan.
The yawning oven spits...Read more of this...

On a Hillside

by George William Russell
 A FRIENDLY mountain I know;
As I lie on the green slope there
It sets my heart in a glow
And closes the door on care.


A thought I try to frame—
I was with you long ago;
My soul from your heart out-came;
Mountain, is that not so?


Take me again, dear hills,
Open the door to me
Where the magic murmur thrills
The halls I do not see,


The...Read more of this...

To Psyche

by David Lehman
 The longer I stare the lovelier
you look in my eyes (so made such
mirrors and spies) and I'm not done
yet as I enumerate the virtues
of your smile, gracious in defeat,
victorious in love, your breasts
and belly and below, the zone I'd
like to zone in on, your ankles
unshod, your brassiere and panties
strewn on the floor, you are
my Psyche (Greek for memory or...Read more of this...

From Us She wandered now a Year

by Emily Dickinson
 From Us She wandered now a Year,
Her tarrying, unknown,
If Wilderness prevent her feet
Or that Ethereal Zone

No eye hath seen and lived
We ignorant must be --
We only know what time of Year
We took the Mystery....Read more of this...

Speak Of The North! A Lonely Moor

by Charlotte Bronte
 Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft...Read more of this...

A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor

by Ogden Nash
 The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly bum from an ancient...Read more of this...

The Living Temple

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 NOT in the world of light alone, 
Where God has built his blazing throne, 
Nor yet alone in earth below, 
With belted seas that come and go, 
And endless isles of sunlit green, 
Is all thy Maker's glory seen: 
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,--
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves 
Flows murmuring through its...Read more of this...

To The Man Of The High North

by Robert William Service
 My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
 I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,
Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,
 Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.

I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices
 From peak snow-diademed to regal star;
Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,
 The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.

The Here, the Now,...Read more of this...

In this eternally revolving zone,

by Omar Khayyam
In this eternally revolving zone,
Two lucky species of men are known;
One knows all good and ill that are on earth,
One neither earth's affairs, nor yet his own....Read more of this...

Stanzas To A Lady On Leaving England

by George (Lord) Byron
 'Tis done---and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o'er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.

But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen---
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest---
I should...Read more of this...

Bird With Two Right Wings

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They're interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in...Read more of this...

Zone

by Guillaume Apollinaire
ZONE 


In the end you are tired of this ancient world 
Shepherd oh Eiffel Tower the herd of bridges is bleating this morning 

You've had enough of living in Greek and Roman antiquity 

Here even the cars look antique 
Only religion has stayed new religion 
Has stayed simple like the hangars at Port-Aviation 

You alone in Europe are not ancient...Read more of this...

The Humble-Bee

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
BURLY dozing humble-bee  
Where thou art is clime for me. 
Let them sail for Porto Rique  
Far-off heats through seas to seek; 
I will follow thee alone 5 
Thou animated torrid-zone! 
Zigzag steerer desert cheerer  
Let me chase thy waving lines; 
Keep me nearer me thy hearer  
Singing over shrubs and vines. 10 

Insect lover of...Read more of this...

There is a Zone whose even Years

by Emily Dickinson
 There is a Zone whose even Years
No Solstice interrupt --
Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon
Whose perfect Seasons wait --

Whose Summer set in Summer, till
The Centuries of June
And Centuries of August cease
And Consciousness -- is Noon....Read more of this...

thirteeners

by Rg Gregory
 18
if you want a revolution attack
symbols not systems - the simple forms
that (blithely) give the truth away
tying down millions to their terms
quietly with no one answering back

where the stage is makes the play
keeps actors (meanings) to those norms
stability requires - change tack
(remove the stage) violent storms
will sweep the old regime away

eventually there'll be no going back
once new symbols breed...Read more of this...

O soul! could you but doff this flesh and bone,

by Omar Khayyam
O soul! could you but doff this flesh and bone,
You'd soar a sprite about the heavenly throne;
Had you no shame to leave your starry home,
And dwell an alien on this earthly zone?...Read more of this...

The Assignation

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Hear I the creaking gate unclose?
The gleaming latch uplifted?
No--'twas the wind that, whirring, rose,
Amidst the poplars drifted!
Adorn thyself, thou green leaf-bowering roof,
Destined the bright one's presence to receive,
For her, a shadowy palace-hall aloof
With holy night, thy boughs familiar weave.
And ye sweet flatteries of the delicate air,
Awake and sport her rosy cheek around,
When their light weight the tender feet shall...Read more of this...

Not any sunny tone

by Emily Dickinson
 Not any sunny tone
From any fervent zone
Find entrance there --
Better a grave of Balm
Toward human nature's home --
And Robins near --
Than a stupendous Tomb
Proclaiming to the Gloom
How dead we are --...Read more of this...

Maid of Athens ere we part

by George (Lord) Byron
 Maid of Athens, ere we part, 
Give, oh, give back my heart! 
Or, since that has left my breast, 
Keep it now, and take the rest! 
Hear my vow before I go, 
Zo? mou sas agapo. 

By those tresses unconfined, 
Wooed by each Aegean wind; 
By those lids whose jetty fringe 
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge; 
By those...Read more of this...

Blakes Victory

by Andrew Marvell
 On the Victory Obtained by Blake over the Spaniards in the Bay of Santa Cruz, in the Island of Tenerife, 1657

Now does Spain's fleet her spacious wings unfold, 
Leaves the New World and hastens for the old: 
But though the wind was fair, they slowly swum 
Freighted with acted guilt, and guilt to come: 
For this rich load, of...Read more of this...

Lines on Hearing it Declared that No Women Were So Handsome as the English

by Mary Darby Robinson
 BEAUTY, the attribute of Heaven! 
In various forms to mortals given, 
With magic skill enslaves mankind, 
As sportive fancy sways the mind. 
Search the wide world, go where you will, 
VARIETY pursues you still; 
Capricious Nature knows no bound, 
Her unexhausted gifts are found 
In ev'ry clime, in ev'ry face, 
Each has its own peculiar grace. 

To GALLIA's frolic...Read more of this...

The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever

by Les Murray
 To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass, 

to camp out along the river bends
for good, wearing shorts, with a pocketknife,
a fishing line and matches, 

or there where the hills are all down, below the plain,
to sit around in shorts at evening
on the plank verandah -...Read more of this...

Ode to Winter

by Thomas Campbell
 When first the fiery-mantled sun 
His heavenly race begun to run; 
Round the earth and ocean blue, 
His children four the Seasons flew. 
First, in green apparel dancing, 
The young Spring smiled with angel grace; 
Rosy summer next advancing, 
Rushed into her sire's embrace:- 
Her blue-haired sire, who bade her keep 
For ever nearest to his smile, 
On Calpe's...Read more of this...

Skies like a zone our weary lives enclose,

by Omar Khayyam
Skies like a zone our weary lives enclose,
And from our tear-stained eyes a Jihun flows;
Hell is a fire enkindled of our griefs;
Heaven but a moment's peace, stolen from our woes....Read more of this...

Blue Bell The

by Emily Brontë
 The blue bell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air;
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care. 

There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear;
The violet has a fragrant breath
But fragrance will not cheer. 

The trees are bare, the sun is cold;
And seldom, seldom seen;
The heavens have lost their zone of gold
The earth its...Read more of this...

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