Here are my favorite poems about the moon categorized:
- Famous poems about the moon
- Beautiful poems about the moon
So if you want the best poems about the moon, then you’re in the right place.
Keep reading!
Mystical Poems About the Moon
Dive into this collection of moon-inspired poetry that’s certain to leave an imprint on your imagination.
Those favorites of mine showcase a variety of poems, from timeless classics that have stood the test of time, to mystical verses that explore the deeper, spiritual connections we have with the moon.
Each piece has been selected with care, designed to stir your soul and shed light on the moon’s influence within the realm of poetry.
This compilation is for anyone who appreciates poetry, as well as those drawn to the enchanting allure of lunar-inspired verse.
Embark on this extraordinary journey through rhythmic words and phrases, and prepare to be mesmerized by the magic of the moon that lies within these pages
Are you ready to be moonstruck?
Let’s jump right in!
My #1 Favorite Poem About the Moon
“Evening Star” by Edgar Allan Poe
‘Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
‘Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold–too cold for me–
There pass’d, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
Why “Evening Star” Is My Favorite Poem About the Moon
There are moments in life that shine brighter than the others but this doesn’t mean that they are insignificant.
That’s what this number one favorite poem reminded me as it compares the moon’s brightness to the evening star’s.
I already encountered many melancholic poems by Edgar Allan Poe and “Evening Star” is no different.
It unveils our tendency to overlook the beauty of quieter, unassuming moments in favor of those that appear brighter, leading us to miss out on their true significance.
Famous Poems About the Moon
Immerse yourself in celestial poetry in this category, where moonbeams whisper secrets and ethereal reflections stir the soul.
Journey through renowned poets’ moonlit verses, where dreams and reality intertwine under the luminous gaze of the moon.
“Silver” by Walter de la Mare
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
“The New Moon” by Langston Hughes
There’s a new, young moon riding the hills tonight;
There’s a sprightly, young moon exploring the clouds;
There’s a half-shy, young moon veiling her face like a virgin,
Waiting for her lover.
“Dusk in Autumn” by Sara Teasdale
The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches likes an eye.
And thro’ the nursery window-pane
The witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,—
And now I know they’re having tea,
I wish they’d give a cup to me,
With witches’ currant cake.
“To the Moon” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
“The Moon” by Robert Louis Stevenson
The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;
She shines on thieves on the garden wall,
On streets and fields and harbour quays,
And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.
The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,
The howling dog by the door of the house,
The bat that lies in bed at noon,
All love to be out by the light of the moon.
But all of the things that belong to the day
Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;
And flowers and children close their eyes
Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.
“The Early Morning” by Hilaire Belloc
The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.
“Autumn River Song” by Li Po
The moon shimmers in green water.
White herons fly through the moonlight.
The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts:
into the night, singing, they paddle home together.
“A Fairy Song” by William Shakespeare
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
“The Moon” by Oliver Herford
The Moon is like a big round cheese
That shines above the garden trees,
And like a cheese grows less each night,
As though some one had had a bite.
The Mouse delights to nibble cheese,
The Dog bites anything he sees–
But how could they bite off the Moon
Unless they went in a balloon?
And Human People, when they eat
They think it rude to bite their meat,
They use a Knife or Fork or Spoon;
Who is it then that bites the moon?
“The Moon To The Sun” by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell
As the full moon shining there
To the sun that lighteth her
Am I unto thee for ever,
O my secret glory-giver!
O my light, I am dark but fair,
Black but fair.
Shine, Earth loves thee! And then shine
And be loved through thoughts of mine.
All thy secrets that I treasure
I translate them at my pleasure.
I am crowned with glory of thine.
Thine, not thine.
I make pensive thy delight,
And thy strong gold silver-white.
Though all beauty of nine thou makest,
Yet to earth which thou forsakest
I have made thee fair all night,
Day all night.
“Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known” by William Wordsworth
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eye I kept
On the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head!
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy hould be dead!’
“Above the Dock” by T. E. Hulme
Above the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast’s corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child’s balloon, forgotten after play.
“Evening Song” by Jean Toomer
Full moon rising on the waters of my heart,
Lakes and moon and fires,
Cloine tires,
Holding her lips apart.
Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon,
Miracle made vesper-keeps,
Cloine sleeps,
And I’ll be sleeping soon.
Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the
moon-waves start,
Radiant, resplendently she gleams,
Cloine dreams,
Lips pressed against my heart.
“Waiting—Afield at Dusk” by Robert Frost
What things for dream there are when spectre-like,
Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled,
I enter alone upon the stubble field,
From which the laborers’ voices late have died,
And in the antiphony of afterglow
And rising full moon, sit me down
Upon the full moon’s side of the first haycock
And lose myself amid so many alike.
I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour,
Preventing shadow until the moon prevail;
I dream upon the night-hawks peopling heaven,
Each circling each with vague unearthly cry,
Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar;
And on the bat’s mute antics, who would seem
Dimly to have made out my secret place,
Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
And seek it endlessly with purblind haste;
On the last swallow’s sweep; and on the rasp
In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back,
That, silenced by my advent, finds once more,
After an interval, his instrument,
And tries once—twice—and thrice if I be there;
And on the worn book of old-golden song
I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold
And freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
But on the memory of one absent most,
For whom these lines when they shall greet her eyes.
“Amores” by E. E. Cummings
There is a moon sole
in the blue night
amorous of waters
tremulous,
blinded with silence the
undulous heaven yearns where
in tense starlessness
anoint with ardor
the yellow lover
stands in the dumb dark
svelte and urgent
(again love i slowly gather
of thy languorous mouth the
thrilling flower)
“The Difference” by Thomas Hardy
Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.
Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.
“A Night Thought” by William Wordsworth
Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly
How bright her mien!
Far different we–a froward race,
Thousands though rich in Fortune’s grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue,
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.
If kindred humours e’er would make
My spirit droop for drooping’s sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake,
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.
Beautiful Poems About the Moon
Lose yourself in the enchanting verses that capture the moon’s ethereal beauty, painting a tapestry of shimmering light and captivating emotions, leaving you spellbound under its enchanting glow.
Let’s go!
“Moonlight” by Walter De La Mare
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.
“Lunar Paraphrase” by Wallace Stevens
The moon is the mother of pathos and pity.
When, at the wearier end of November,
Her old light moves along the branches,
Feebly, slowly, depending upon them;
When the body of Jesus hangs in a pallor,
Humanly near, and the figure of Mary,
Touched on by hoar-frost, shrinks in a shelter
Made by the leaves, that have rotted and fallen;
When over the houses, a golden illusion
Brings back an earlier season of quiet
And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness—
The moon is the mother of pathos and pity.
“A Solar Eclipse” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In that great journey of the stars through space
About the mighty, all-directing Sun,
The pallid, faithful Moon, has been the one
Companion of the Earth. Her tender face,
Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that race,
Which at Time’s natal hour was first begun,
Shines ever on her lover as they run
And lights his orbit with her silvery smile.
Sometimes such passionate love doth in her rise,
Down from her beaten path she softly slips,
And with her mantle veils the Sun’s bold eyes,
Then in the gloaming finds her lover’s lips.
While far and near the men our world call wise
See only that the Sun is in eclipse.
“The Crescent Moon” by Amy Lowell
Slipping softly through the sky
Little horned, happy moon,
Can you hear me up so high?
Will you come down soon?
On my nursery window-sill
Will you stay your steady flight?
And then float away with me
Through the summer night?
Brushing over tops of trees,
Playing hide and seek with stars,
Peeping up through shiny clouds
At Jupiter or Mars.
I shall fill my lap with roses
Gathered in the milky way,
All to carry home to mother.
Oh! what will she say!
Little rocking, sailing moon,
Do you hear me shout — Ahoy!
Just a little nearer, moon,
To please a little boy.
“And Yet—” by Frances Reed Gibson
A September Memory
Оh, do you not remember
In that golden-hued September
Long ago,
How we sat beneath the shadow
Of the gnarled oak in the meadow,
With the young moon rising o’er us,
And the river close before us
Murmuring a tender chorus
Minor-keyed and low?
In the soft September moonlight,
Shining clear as winter noonlight,
Vale and stream
And the far-off hills eternal
Glowed with that light supernal
Seen only in Love’s dream.
The subtle south-wind’s moaning
And the waves’ low undertoning
To us brought
Of the future no sad presage—
Only with Love’s heavenly message
Breeze and stream seemed fraught.
Still the restless river rushes,
With its fitful sobs and hushes,
Through the reeds along the shore ;
And the young moon, fair and tender,
Showers forth the same soft splendor.
“The Moon” by Henry David Thoreau
The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.
She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless,
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.
And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She’s mistress of the night.
“The Moon” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I
And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp’d in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The mood arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass.
II
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
“Amidst The Flowers A Jug Of Wine” by Li Po
Amidst the flowers a jug of wine,
I pour alone lacking companionship.
So raising the cup I invite the Moon,
Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us.
Because the Moon does not know how to drink,
My shadow merely follows the movement of my body.
The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while,
The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring.
I start a song and the moon begins to reel,
I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely.
While I’m still conscious let’s rejoice with one another,
After I’m drunk let each one go his way.
Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings.
Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.
“Endymion” by Oscar Wilde
The apple trees are hung with gold,
And birds are loud in Arcady,
The sheep lie bleating in the fold,
The wild goat runs across the wold,
But yesterday his love he told,
I know he will come back to me.
O rising moon! O Lady moon!
Be you my lover’s sentinel,
You cannot choose but know him well,
For he is shod with purple shoon,
You cannot choose but know my love,
For he a shepherd’s crook doth bear,
And he is soft as any dove,
And brown and curly is his hair.
The turtle now has ceased to call
Upon her crimson-footed groom,
They grey wolf prowls about the stall,
The lily’s singing seneschal
Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all
The violet hills are lost in gloom.
O risen moon! O holy moon!
Stand on the tope of Helice,
And if my own true love you see,
Ah! if you see the purple shoon,
The hazel crook, the lad’s brown hair,
The goat-skin wrapped about his arm,
Tell him that I am waiting where
The rushlight glimmers in the Farm.
The falling dew is cold and chill,
And no bird sings in Arcady,
The little fauns have left the hill,
Even the tired daffodil
Has closed its gilded doors, and still
My lover comes not back to me.
False moon! False moon! O waning moon!
Where is my own true lover gone,
Where are the lips vermilion,
The shepherd’s crook, the purple shoon?
Why spread that silver pavilion,
Why wear that veil of drifting mist?
Ah! thou hast young Endymion,
Thou hast the lips that should be kissed!
“The Moon Was But A Chin Of Gold” by Emily Dickinson
The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago—
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below—
Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde—
Her Cheek—a Beryl hewn—
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known—
Her Lips of Amber never part—
But what must be the smile
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will—
And what a privilege to be
But the remotest Star—
For Certainty She take Her Way
Beside Your Palace Door—
Her Bonnet is the Firmament—
The Universe—Her Shoe—
The Stars—the Trinkets at Her Belt—
Her Dimities—of Blue—
“If The Moon Came From Heaven” by Christina Rossetti
If the moon came from heaven,
Talking all the way,
What could she have to tell us,
And what could she say?
‘I’ve seen a hundred pretty things,
And seen a hundred gay;
But only think: I peep by night
And do not peep by day!’
“Moon” by Henry Rowe
Thee too, modest tressèd maid,
When thy fallen stars appear;
When in lawn of fire array’d
Sov’reign of yon powder’d sphere;
To thee I chant at close of day,
Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.
Throned in sapphired ring supreme,
Pregnant with celestial juice,
On silver wing thy diamond stream
Gives what summer hours produce;
While view’d impearl’d earth’s rich inlay,
Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.
Glad, pale Cynthian wine I sip,
Breathed the flow’ry leaves among;
Draughts delicious wet my lip;
Drown’d in nectar drunk my song;
While tuned to Philomel the lay,
Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.
Dew, that od’rous ointment yields,
Sweets, that western winds disclose,
Bathing spring’s more purpled fields,
Soft ‘s the band that winds the rose;
While o’er thy myrtled lawns I stray
Beneath, O maiden Moon! thy ray.
“Harvest Moon” by George Marion McClellan
The dark magnolia leaves and spreading fig
With green luxuriant beauty all their own,
Stirless, hang heavy-coated with the dew,
Which swift and iridescent gleams shoot through
As if a thousand brilliant diamonds shone.
Afloat the lagoon, water-lilies white
In sweets with muscadines perfume the night.
A song bird restless chants a fleeting lay;
Asleep on all the swamp and bayou lies
A peaceful, blissful moonlight, mystic haze,
A dreaminess o’er all the landscape plays,
While lake and lagoon mirror all the skies.
There is a glory doomed to pass too soon,
That lies subdued beneath the harvest moon.
“The Mother Touch” by Frances Reed Gibson
Bloom of the violet, breath of the rose,
Beam of the moon on a summer sea,
Strain of a long-forgotten song,
Beauty and fragrance and melody.
Memory’s handmaidens, oh, to-night,
Bring some balm from the long ago
For a bruised heart, till a healing flood
From my tearless eyelids at last shall flow.
Oh, violet, blue as the laughing eyes
That looked into mine in the morning glow
Of life, like pastures of Paradise,
Are the April meadows you lead us through,
Two happy children, weaving together
Your scented blooms in the fair spring
weather.
And red, red rose, your breath of musk
Folds me close in the fond embrace
Of the friend of my youth, as through the dusk
The path of your sweetness we idly trace ;
And moon, that silvers yon summer sea,
Down your pathway of light once more I float,
And a tender voice breathes low in my ear,
While Love plies the oars of the fairy boat.
But playmate, and friend, and lover, in vain
Beckon from out the misty past.
Tearless I gaze on the shadowy train,
Ghosts of a youth too bright to last.
But a tremulous tune comes floating down
Through the night, by some wandering wind
beguiled,
And the long-pent grief of a breaking heart
Bursts forth in tears when I hear the wild,
Sweet, quavering air my mother sang
As she rocked me to sleep, a sinless child.
“O Lady Moon” by Christina Georgina Rossetti
O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the east:
Shine, be increased;
O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the west:
Wane, be at rest.
“Under the Harvest Moon” by Carl Sandburg
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
“The Moon Maiden’s Song” by Ernest Christopher Dowson
Sleep! Cast thy canopy
Over this sleeper’s brain,
Dim grow his memory,
When he awake again.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her wing’d flight
Back to her starry home.
Sleep! Yet thy days are mine;
Love’s seal is over thee:
Far though my ways from thine,
Dim though thy memory.
Love stays a summer night,
Till lights of morning come;
Then takes her winged flight
Back to her starry home.