Famous October Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous October poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous october poems. These examples illustrate what a famous october poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Teasdale, Sara
...hey come back again!" . . . Look at the lake --
Do you remember how we watched the swans
That night in late October while they slept?
Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now
The lake bears only thin reflected lights
That shake a little. How I long to take
One from the cold black water -- new-made gold
To give you in your hand! And see, and see,
There is a star, deep in the lake, a star!
Oh, dimmer than a pearl -- if you stoop down
Your hand could ...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ie of their own dust. But having his wits,
Henceforth he may conceivably avoid
The adventure unattended. Last October
He took me with him into the Maine woods,
Where, by the shore of a primeval lake,
With woods all round it, and a voyage away
From anything wearing clothes, he had reared somehow
A lodge, or camp, with a stone chimney in it,
And a wide fireplace to make men forget
Their sins who sat before it in the evening,
Hearing the wind outside among the tr...Read more of this...
by
Brautigan, Richard
...e pan full of water on the stove.
I knew that it would take a year before the water started to boil. It was now October
and there was too much water in the pan. That was the problem. I threw half of the water
into the sink.
The water would boil faster now. It would take only six months. The house was quiet.
I looked out the back porch. There were sacks of garbage there. I stared at the garbage
and tried to figure out what she had been e...Read more of this...
by
Hammad, Suheir
...leaves and leaving call october home
her daughter releases wood
smoke from her skin
rich in scorpio
blood survived the first
flood each new year marks
a circle around her
thick bark middle
this the month summer and
winter fall into each
other and leave orange
yellow ashes
the vibrancy of death
carry it all
coiled in my belly
cut on the cusp
of libra tail
tips the scales
tonight i...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...cloth
My mother unrolled at your last homecoming.
I borrow the silts of an old tragedy.
The truth is, one late October, at my birth-cry
A scorpion stung its head, an ill-starred thing;
My mother dreamed you face down in the sea.
The stony actors poise and pause for breath.
I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to the bone
My mother said: you died like any man.
How shall I age into that state of mind?
I am the ghost...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...e are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List t...Read more of this...
by
Sassoon, Siegfried
...the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shrivelling leaves 5
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves
And sad the robins pipe at set of day.
Now do ye dream of Spring when greening shaws
Confer with the shrewd breezes and of slopes 10
Flower-kirtled and of April virgin guest;
Days that ye love des...Read more of this...
by
Thoreau, Henry David
...as pass'd
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze....Read more of this...
by
Thomas, Dylan
...r>
A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owl...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...cinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?
III
The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
“And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to ...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire.. . .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.
Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the fi...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Summer has two Beginnings --
Beginning once in June --
Beginning in October
Affectingly again --
Without, perhaps, the Riot
But graphicker for Grace --
As finer is a going
Than a remaining Face --
Departing then -- forever --
Forever -- until May --
Forever is deciduous
Except to those who die --...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.
That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.
We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall's
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the top of the se...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...lood-red streak from the shoulder down.
"It looks like blood," says Miss Jessie with a frown.
Tap! Tap! Rap!
An October day, with waves running in blue-white lines and a capful
of wind.
Three broad flags ripple out behind
Where the masts will be:
Royal Standard at the main,
Admiralty flag at the fore,
Union Jack at the mizzen.
The hammers tap harder, faster,
They must finish by noon.
The last nail is driven.
But the wind has increased to half a gale,
...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...on her dress,
And thought it never yet had looked so mean.
For as a leaf in mid-November is
To what it is in mid-October, seemed
The dress that now she looked on to the dress
She looked on ere the coming of Geraint.
And still she looked, and still the terror grew
Of that strange bright and dreadful thing, a court,
All staring at her in her faded silk:
And softly to her own sweet heart she said:
'This noble prince who won our earldom back,
So splendid in hi...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...wl wing their flight;
The hedges are all red with haws and hips,
The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.
October
My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,
Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;
I do no boast the harvesting of sheaves,
O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,
The dreamy air is full, and overflows
With tender memories of the summer-tide,
And mingled voices of the doves and crows.
...Read more of this...
by
Levis, Larry
...--The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
--for my brother
Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of sleeping women...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...>
THOU go'st! I murmur--
Go! let me murmur.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!
Deadly marshes,
Steaming mists of October
Here interweave their currents,
Blending for ever.
Noisome insects
Here are engender'd;
Fatal darkness
Veils their malice.
The fiery-tongued serpent,
Hard by the sedgy bank,
Stretches his pamper'd body,
Caress'd by the sun's bright beams.
Tempt no gentle night-rambles
Under the moon's cold twilight!
Loathsome toads hold their meetings
...Read more of this...
by
St Vincent Millay, Edna
...I cannot but remember
When the year grows old—
October—November—
How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,
She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget—
The look of a scared thing
Si...Read more of this...
by
de la Mare, Walter
...er dire,
Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night,
Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire,
Or taste the old October brown and bright....Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member October poems.