Famous Nature Poems

Famous Nature Poems

Poems on Nature

The power, ingenuity, and sheer beauty found in nature has always fascinated mankind. When we look at powerful ocean waves rolling in, we cannot help but feel small and powerless in comparison. Mighty trees in a vast forest inspire feelings of insignificance and awe. Animal mothers taking care of their young make us question the cruelty with which we sometimes treat one another. The truth is, nature can teach us many valuable lessons. It can also lead us to wonder, did this beautiful earth with all of its natural treasures come about by chance or was it created?

57 Famous Nature Poems About The Beauty And Brutality Of Nature

  1. 1. I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

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    "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a lyric poem that expresses deep feelings about the beauty of nature. William Wordsworth was a well-known poet of the Romantic era, which began at the beginning of the 1800s. The focus during the Romantic era was on people's feelings and their connectedness to nature. That was a drastic shift from the emphasis on science and reason of the Enlightenment era, which came before. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is one of Wordsworth's most famous poems. It was inspired by a journal entry his sister wrote recounting when the two of them went for a walk along the bay and saw a large number of daffodils.

    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host, of golden daffodils;
    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

    Continuous as the stars that shine
    And twinkle on the milky way,
    They stretched in never-ending line
    Along the margin of a bay:
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

    The waves beside them danced; but they
    Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
    A poet could not but be gay,
    In such a jocund company:
    I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
    What wealth the show to me had brought:

    For oft, when on my couch I lie
    In vacant or in pensive mood,
    They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude;
    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
    And dances with the daffodils.

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  3. 2. Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

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    This deceptively simple poem is by Robert Frost (1874 – 1963). He wrote it in 1922 in a few moments after being up the entire night writing a long and complicated poem. The poem uses an AABA rhyme scheme. The repetition of the last line emphasizes the profundity contained in the last stanza, a popular reading for funerals.

    Whose woods these are I think I know.   
    His house is in the village though;   
    He will not see me stopping here   
    To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

    My little horse must think it queer   
    To stop without a farmhouse near   
    Between the woods and frozen lake   
    The darkest evening of the year.   

    He gives his harness bells a shake   
    To ask if there is some mistake.   
    The only other sound’s the sweep   
    Of easy wind and downy flake.   

    The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
    But I have promises to keep,   
    And miles to go before I sleep,   
    And miles to go before I sleep.

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  5. 3. Winter Morning Poem

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    This famous poem by Ogden Nash uses descriptive language to show the beauty of snow. Winter is unlike any other season where snow blankets everything it touches. It transforms the land into a magical experience. Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was well-known and appreciated during his lifetime.

    Winter is the king of showmen,
    Turning tree stumps into snow men
    And houses into birthday cakes
    And spreading sugar over lakes.
    Smooth and clean and frosty white,
    The world looks good enough to bite.
    That's the season to be young,
    Catching snowflakes on your tongue!
    Snow is snowy when it's snowing.
    I'm sorry it's slushy when it's going.

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  6. 4. Sea Fever

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    As you read this poem about the beauty of sailing the ocean, imagine the smell of the salt air, the wind on your face and the movement of the waves as you sail toward your destiny.

    I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
    And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
    And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
    And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

    I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
    Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
    And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
    And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

    I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
    To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
    And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
    And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

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  7. 5. Nothing Gold Can Stay

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    Robert Frost is one of the most famous poets from the 1900s. He never earned a formal college degree, but he did receive honorary degrees from more than 40 colleges and universities. This famous poem shows that everything in life is cyclical and that the beauty in nature only lasts for a short period of time. Even though life ends, there is new life waiting to come forth.

    Nature's first green is gold,
    Her hardest hue to hold.
    Her early leaf's a flower;
    But only so an hour.
    Then leaf subsides to leaf.
    So Eden sank to grief,
    So dawn goes down to day.
    Nothing gold can stay.

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  8. 6. Peace

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    Being immersed in nature brings about a peace within a person. Everything in nature has been carefully and meticulously created, leaving us breathless when it’s enjoyed. The world revolves in a peaceful manner; it’s people who’ve created the chaos. Humans are so busy with many different things that we forget to slow down and enjoy the peace of nature.

    THE steadfast coursing of the stars,
    The waves that ripple to the shore,
    The vigorous trees which year by year
    Spread upwards more and more;

    The jewel forming in the mine,
    The snow that falls so soft and light,
    The rising and the setting sun,
    The growing glooms of night;

    All natural things both live and move
    In natural peace that is their own;
    Only in our disordered life
    Almost is she unknown.

    She is not rest, nor sleep, nor death;
    Order and motion ever stand
    To carry out her firm behests
    As guards at her right hand.

    And something of her living force
    Fashions the lips when Christians say
    To Him Whose strength sustains the world,
    "Give us Thy Peace, we pray!"

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  9. 7. The Brook

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    The Industrial Revolution took place in Great Britain during the late 1700s and early 1800s. As cities grew, living conditions deteriorated for the poor and working class. Factories and mass production were beneficial for some but not everyone. This poem stands in contrast of new manufacturing processes of that time period by focusing on nature. The narrator in this poem, the brook, is personified. The brook shows persistence by continuing to flow, no matter what obstacles get in its way. The repeated lines, “For men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever,” showcase that. Famous poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was named Poet Laureate in Great Britain and Ireland.

    I come from haunts of coot and hern,
       I make a sudden sally
    And sparkle out among the fern,
       To bicker down a valley.

    By thirty hills I hurry down,
       Or slip between the ridges,
    By twenty thorpes, a little town,
       And half a hundred bridges.

    Till last by Philip's farm I flow
       To join the brimming river,
    For men may come and men may go,
       But I go on for ever.

    I chatter over stony ways,
       In little sharps and trebles,
    I bubble into eddying bays,
       I babble on the pebbles.

    With many a curve my banks I fret
       By many a field and fallow,
    And many a fairy foreland set
       With willow-weed and mallow.

    I chatter, chatter, as I flow
       To join the brimming river,
    For men may come and men may go,
       But I go on for ever.

    I wind about, and in and out,
       With here a blossom sailing,
    And here and there a lusty trout,
       And here and there a grayling,

    And here and there a foamy flake
       Upon me, as I travel
    With many a silvery waterbreak
       Above the golden gravel,

    And draw them all along, and flow
       To join the brimming river
    For men may come and men may go,
       But I go on for ever.

    I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
       I slide by hazel covers;
    I move the sweet forget-me-nots
       That grow for happy lovers.

    I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
       Among my skimming swallows;
    I make the netted sunbeam dance
       Against my sandy shallows.

    I murmur under moon and stars
       In brambly wildernesses;
    I linger by my shingly bars;
       I loiter round my cresses;

    And out again I curve and flow
       To join the brimming river,
    For men may come and men may go,
       But I go on for ever.

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  10. 8. God The Artist

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    Angela Morgan was an American writer who formed a musical quartet with her three sisters, and her brother was their manager. This was one way she earned a living. In this poem, the narrator reflects on the marvels of God. How did He come up with all the ideas and intricacies we see in nature?

    God, when you thought of a pine tree,
    How did you think of a star?
    How did you dream of the Milky Way
    To guide us from afar.
    How did you think of a clean brown pool
    Where flecks of shadows are?

    God, when you thought of a cobweb,
    How did you think of dew?
    How did you know a spider's house
    Had shingles bright and new?
    How did you know the human folk
    Would love them like they do?

    God, when you patterned a bird song,
    Flung on a silver string,
    How did you know the ecstasy
    That crystal call would bring?
    How did you think of a bubbling throat
    And a darling speckled wing?

    God, when you chiseled a raindrop,
    How did you think of a stem,
    Bearing a lovely satin leaf
    To hold the tiny gem?
    How did you know a million drops
    Would deck the morning's hem?

    Why did you mate the moonlit night
    With the honeysuckle vines?
    How did you know Madeira bloom
    Distilled ecstatic wines?
    How did you weave the velvet disk
    Where tangled perfumes are?
    God, when you thought of a pine tree,
    How did you think of a star?

    God The Artist By Angela Morgan

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  11. 9. Music

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    Bessie Rayner Parkes lived from 1829-1925. She was an English feminist who became an editor of the Britain's first feminist magazine. This poem showcases how nature creates a concert for anyone who stops to listen.

    Sweet melody amidst the moving spheres
    Breaks forth, a solemn and entrancing sound,
    A harmony whereof the earth's green hills
    Give but the faintest echo; yet is there
    A music everywhere, and concert sweet!
    All birds which sing amidst the forest deep
    Till the flowers listen with unfolded bells;
    All winds that murmur over summer grass,
    Or curl the waves upon the pebbly shore;
    Chiefly all earnest human voices rais'd
    In charity and for the cause of truth,
    Mingle together in one sacred chord,
    And float, a grateful incense, up to God.

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  12. 10. There Is Another Sky

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    This poem about finding a beautiful garden is one of Emily Dickinson's most well known poems. The precise meaning of the poem is a matter of opinion. One possibility is that she is pointing out that a person may be disappointed in his quest to experience beauty in the world. However, when we look inside ourselves and one another, we may find a flourishing beautiful garden of delights!

    There is another sky,
    Ever serene and fair,
    And there is another sunshine,
    Though it be darkness there;
    Never mind faded forests, Austin,
    Never mind silent fields -
    Here is a little forest,
    Whose leaf is ever green;
    Here is a brighter garden,
    Where not a frost has been;
    In its unfading flowers
    I hear the bright bee hum:
    Prithee, my brother,
    Into my garden come!

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  13. 11. The Glory Of The Garden

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    The Glory Of The Garden By Rudyard Kipling was first published in A School History of England (1911).

    Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
    Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
    With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
    But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

    For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
    You'll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all
    The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dung-pits and the tanks,
    The rollers, carts, and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

    And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
    Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise ;
    For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
    The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

    And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
    And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows ;
    But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
    For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

    Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
    By singing, "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade
    While better men than we go out and start their working lives
    At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

    There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
    There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick
    But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
    For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

    Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
    If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
    And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
    You will find yourself a partner In the Glory of the Garden.

    Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
    That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
    So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
    For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

    And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

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  14. 12. The Way Through The Woods

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    Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) was an short-story writer, poet, and novelist. In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Among his most famous works are The Jungle Book and the poem "If."

    THEY shut the road through the woods
      Seventy years ago.
    Weather and rain have undone it again,
      And now you would never know
    There was once a path through the woods        
      Before they planted the trees:
    It is underneath the coppice and heath,
      And the thin anemones.
      Only the keeper sees
    That, where the ring-dove broods        
      And the badgers roll at ease,
    There was once a road through the woods.

    Yet, if you enter the woods
      Of a summer evening late,
    When the night-air cools on the trout-ring’d pools        
      Where the otter whistles his mate
    (They fear not men in the woods
      Because they see so few),
    You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet
      And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
      Steadily cantering through
    The misty solitudes,
      As though they perfectly knew
    The old lost road through the woods ...
    But there is no road through the woods.

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  15. 13. A Light Exists In Spring

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    Emily Dickinson was a famous American poet who lived during the 1800s. In addition to writing, she also studied botany, which could have been an influence in her poems about nature. This poem is about the light that illuminates all that's around it during spring. While this poem is about nature, it has a strong religious undertone, showing there are things science is unable to fully explain.

    A Light exists in Spring
    Not present on the Year
    At any other period --
    When March is scarcely here

    A Color stands abroad
    On Solitary Fields
    That Science cannot overtake
    But Human Nature feels.

    It waits upon the Lawn,
    It shows the furthest Tree
    Upon the furthest Slope you know
    It almost speaks to you.

    Then as Horizons step
    Or Noons report away
    Without the Formula of sound
    It passes and we stay --

    A quality of loss
    Affecting our Content
    As Trade had suddenly encroached
    Upon a Sacrament.

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  16. 14. My November Guest

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    The landscape of New England influenced many of Robert Frost’s poems, which can be seen in “My November Guest.” In this poem, sorrow is personified as someone the speaker loved. While the speaker sees things one way, Sorrow sees them differently. She sees the beauty in autumn, while the poet cannot. We each see beauty in different things. Even in the midst of sorrow there can be something beautiful. In the midst of autumn, where leaves are dying, there is beauty in their changing colors.

    My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
    Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
    Are beautiful as days can be;
    She loves the bare, the withered tree;
    She walks the sodden pasture lane.

    Her pleasure will not let me stay.
    She talks and I am fain to list:
    She's glad the birds are gone away,
    She's glad her simple worsted grey
    Is silver now with clinging mist.

    The desolate, deserted trees,
    The faded earth, the heavy sky,
    The beauties she so truly sees,
    She thinks I have no eye for these,
    And vexes me for reason why.

    Not yesterday I learned to know
    The love of bare November days
    Before the coming of the snow,
    But it were vain to tell her so,
    And they are better for her praise.

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  17. 15. The Tyger

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    William Blake became an apprentice to an engraver at a young age, which was an inspiration for many of his poems. The Tyger in this poem is a symbol of creation and the presence of both good and evil in this world. The Tyger is written in Quatrains (4 line stanzas) and follows an AABB rhyme scheme.

    Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

    In what distant deeps or skies
    Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
    On what wings dare he aspire?
    What the hand dare seize the fire?

    And what shoulder, and what art,
    Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
    And when thy heart began to beat,
    What dread hand? and what dread feet?

    What the hammer? what the chain?
    In what furnace was thy brain?
    What the anvil? what dread grasp
    Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

    When the stars threw down their spears,
    And watered heaven with their tears,
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

    Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye,
    Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

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  18. 16. A Minor Bird

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    When a person is in a depressed mood even the beautiful song of a bird is grating. Of course, after that moment of irritation, one realizes the problem is not with the bird but with you.

    I have wished a bird would fly away,
    And not sing by my house all day;

    Have clapped my hands at him from the door
    When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

    The fault must partly have been in me.
    The bird was not to blame for his key.

    And of course there must be something wrong
    In wanting to silence any song.

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  19. 17. The Seed-Shop

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    One of the topics Muriel Stuart (1885-1967) liked to write about was nature. She even stopped writing poetry to pursue writing about gardening. In this poem, she shares about the hidden potential of seeds. In their current state, they look like lifeless stones, but an entire garden and forest rests inside of them when they are planted. The same could be said about people. When we don’t embrace our purpose and contribute to society, we are no better than unplanted seeds. But once we allow our gifts and talents to be used, we create beauty for others to enjoy.

    HERE in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
    Faded as crumbled stone and shifting sand,
    Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
    Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

    Dead that shall quicken at the voice of spring,
    Sleepers to wake beneath June’s tempest kiss;
    Though birds pass over, unremembering,
    And no bee find here roses that were his.

    In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
    A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
    That shall drink deeply at a century’s streams;
    These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

    Here in their safe and simple house of death,
    Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
    Here I can stir a garden with my breath,
    And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

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  20. 18. Desert Places

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    Robert Frost (1874-1963) spent many years living in New England, and a lot of his poetry was inspired by the landscape around him. In “Desert Places,” he uses the emptiness created by a snowstorm and the darkness of night to compare to depression and emotional turmoil. The loneliness of nature is nothing compared to the loneliness one experiences from their own darkness and isolation. Robert Frost had his own bouts with depression.

    Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
    In a field I looked into going past,
    And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
    But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

    The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
    All animals are smothered in their lairs.
    I am too absent-spirited to count;
    The loneliness includes me unawares.

    And lonely as it is that loneliness
    Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
    A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
    With no expression, nothing to express.

    They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
    Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
    I have it in me so much nearer home
    To scare myself with my own desert places.

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    The time was 1958, the school Oak Park River Forest High, in a western suburb west of Chicago. The class was English Literature, and the teacher was Mildred Linden. After Christmas break, we...

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  21. 19. A Bird Came Down The Walk

    Famous Poem

    A poem about birds from Emily Dickinson. Considered by many to be one of the best American Poets. What about this poem makes it a classic?

    A bird came down the walk:
    He did not know I saw;
    He bit an angle-worm in halves
    And ate the fellow, raw.

    And then he drank a dew
    From a convenient grass,
    And then hopped sidewise to the wall
    To let a beetle pass.

    He glanced with rapid eyes
    That hurried all abroad,--
    They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
    He stirred his velvet head

    Like one in danger; cautious,
    I offered him a crumb,
    And he unrolled his feathers
    And rowed him softer home

    Than oars divide the ocean,
    Too silver for a seam,
    Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
    Leap, plashless, as they swim.

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    I take walks daily with my dog to visit and hang out with friends. Fall is the prettiest show-off with her colorful jewels! The birds and squirrels play hide and seek within and keep me...

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  22. 20. Fog

    Famous Poem

    “Fog” was part of Carl Sandburg’s first poetry collection, Chicago Poems, published in 1916. Sandburg wrote simply and was known to use the “language of the people.” This poem was no different. He used simple imagery, personification and a metaphor to compare fog to the movement of a cat. Sandburg was inspired to write this poem when he saw the fog roll in to the Chicago harbor.

    The fog comes
    on little cat feet.

    It sits looking
    over harbor and city
    on silent haunches
    and then moves on.

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    My dear neighbor, Nellie, who is in her 80s, asked me, as I am an artist, to paint a picture for her to give to her husband for Christmas. She said he loves the poem "Here Comes the Fog" by...

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