Full Moon

One night as Dick lay half asleep,
    Into his drowsy eyes
A great still light begins to creep
    From out the silent skies.
It was lovely moon's, for when
    He raised his dreamy head,
Her surge of silver filled the pane
    And streamed across his bed.
So, for a while, each gazed at each -
    Dick and the solemn moon -
Till, climbing slowly on her way,
    She vanished, and was gone.

Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and his poem "The Listeners". Born in 1873 in Charlton, Kent, De La Mare's unique blend of haunting, dreamlike imagery and masterful command of language earned him a lasting place in English literature. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1953, and his works continue to be celebrated for their ethereal and evocative quality.

Walter De La Mare

Tired Tim

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Listeners

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Foreboding

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Polonius

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Night

All from the light of the sweet moon
Tired men lie now abed;
Actionless, full of visions, soon
Vanishing, soon sped.

The starry night aflock with beams
Of crystal light scarce stirs:
Only its birds - the cocks, the streams,
Call 'neath heaven's wanderers.

All silent; all hearts still;
Love, cunning, fire fallen low:
When faint morn straying on the hill
Sighs, and his soft airs flow.

Walter De La Mare

Moonlight

The far moon maketh lovers wise
In her pale beauty trembling down,
Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes,
A strangeness not her own.
And, though they shut their lids to kiss,
In starless darkness peace to win,
Even on that secret world from this
Her twilight enters in.

Walter De La Mare

Dream-Song

    Sunlight, moonlight,
    Twilight, starlight -
Gloaming at the close of day,
    And an owl calling,
    Cool dews falling
In a wood of oak and may.

    Lantern-light, taper-light,
    Torchlight, no-light:
Darkness at the shut of day,
    And lions roaring,
    Their wrath pouring
In wild waste places far away.

    Elf-light, bat-light,
    Touchwood-light and toad-light,
And the sea a shimmering gloom of grey,
    And a small face smiling
    In a dream's beguiling
In a world of wonders far away.

Walter De La Mare

Evening

When twilight darkens, and one by one,
The sweet birds to their nests have gone;
When to green banks the glow-worms bring
Pale lamps to brighten evening;
Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl
Through the dewy air to prowl.

Hawking the meadows swiftly he flits,
While the small mouse atrembling sits
With tiny eye of fear upcast
Until his brooding shape be past,
Hiding her where the moonbeams beat,
Casting black shadows in the wheat.

Now all is still: the field-man is
Lapped deep in slumbering silentness.
Not a leaf stirs, but clouds on high
Pass in dim flocks across the sky,
Puffed by a breeze too light to move
Aught but these wakeful sheep above.

O what an arch of light now spans
These fields by night no longer Man's!
Their...

Walter De La Mare

The Tired Cupid

The thin moonlight with trickling ray,
Thridding the boughs of silver may,
Trembles in beauty, pale and cool,
On folded flower, and mantled pool.
All in a haze the rushes lean -
And he - he sits, with chin between
His two cold hands; his bare feet set
Deep in the grasses, green and wet.
About his head a hundred rings
Of gold loop down to meet his wings,
Whose feathers arched their stillness through
Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew.
The mouse-bat peers; the stealthy vole
Creeps from the covert of its hole;
A shimmering moth its pinions furls,
Grey in the moonshine of his curls;
'Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray,
Scattering the fragrance of the may;
And with each stirring of the bough
Shadow beclouds his childlike brow.

Walter De La Mare

The World Of Dream

Now, through the dusk
With muffled bell
The Dustman comes
    The World to tell,
Night's elfin lanterns
    Burn and gleam
In the twilight, wonderful
    World of Dream.

Hollow and dim
    Sleep's boat doth ride,
Heavily still
    At the waterside.
Patter, patter,
    The children come,
Yawning and sleepy,
    Out of the gloom.

Like droning bees
    In a garden green,
Over the thwarts
    They clamber in.
And lovely Sleep
    With long-drawn oar
Turns away
    From the whispering shore.

Over the water
    Like roses glide
Her hundreds of passengers
    Packed inside,
To where in her garden
    Tremble and gleam
The harps and lamps
    Of the World of Dream.

Walter De La Mare