Famous Life Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Life poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous life poems. These examples illustrate what a famous life poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
The Life that tied too tight escapes
Will ever after run
With a prudential look behind
And spectres of the Rein --
The Horse that scents the living Grass
And sees the Pastures smile
Will be retaken with a shot
If he is caught at all --...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
It's easy to invent a Life --
God does it -- every Day --
Creation -- but the Gambol
Of His Authority --
It's easy to efface it --
The thrifty Deity
Could scarce afford Eternity
To Spontaneity --
The Perished Patterns murmur --
But His Perturbless Plan
Proceed -- inserting Here -- a Sun --
There -- leaving out a Man --...Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
There was a man who lived a life of fire.
Even upon the fabric of time,
Where purple becomes orange
And orange purple,
This life glowed,
A dire red stain, indelible;
Yet when he was dead,
He saw that he had not lived....Read more of this...
by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear-
y of idle a being but by...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
He lived the Life of Ambush
And went the way of Dusk
And now against his subtle name
There stands an Asterisk
As confident of him as we --
Impregnable we are --
The whole of Immortality intrenched
Within a star --...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush...Read more of this...
by
Henry David Thoreau
My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
My life lasts but a day or two, and fast
Sweeps by, like torrent stream or desert blast,
Howbeit, of two days I take no heed,—
The day to come, and that already past....Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Since life so soon slips away, what matters it whether
it be sweet or bitter? Since the soul must pass through
the lips, what matters whether it be at Nishapur or at
Balkh? Drink then of wine, for after thee and me, the
moon will long pass on from its last quarter to its first,
and from the first to last....Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
On one occasion King James the Fifth of Scotland, when alone, in disguise,
Near by the Bridge of Cramond met with rather a disagreeable surprise.
He was attacked by five gipsy men without uttering a word,
But he manfully defended himself with his sword.
There chanced to be a poor man threshing corn in a barn near by,
Who came out on hearing...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
To drink wine and rejoice is my gospel of life. To
be as indifferent to heresy as to religion is my creed. I
asked the bride of the human race [the world] what her
dowry was, and she answered: My dowry consists in the
joy of my heart.
293...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Campbell
The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.
The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.
But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,
Ye stars, that measure life to man,...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord,
Then, I am ready to go!
Just a look at the Horses --
Rapid! That will do!
Put me in on the firmest side --
So I shall never fall --
For we must ride to the Judgment --
And it's partly, down Hill --
But never I mind the steeper --
And never I mind the Sea --
Held fast...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much -- how little -- is
Within our power...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.
Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as...Read more of this...
by
Fernando Pessoa
My weary life, that lives unsatisfied
On the foiled off-brink of being e'er but this,
To whom the power to will hath been denied
And the will to renounce doth also miss;
My sated life, with having nothing sated,
In the motion of moving poisèd aye,
Within its dreams from its own dreams abated--
This life let the Gods change or take away.
For this endless succession of...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
More Life -- went out -- when He went
Than Ordinary Breath --
Lit with a finer Phosphor --
Requiring in the Quench --
A Power of Renowned Cold,
The Climate of the Grave
A Temperature just adequate
So Anthracite, to live --
For some -- an Ampler Zero --
A Frost more needle keen
Is necessary, to reduce
The Ethiop within.
Others -- extinguish easier --
A Gnat's minutest Fan
Sufficient to...Read more of this...
by
Delmore Schwartz
Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword,
Threw it down, became a lamb.
Swift spat upon the species, but
Took two women to his heart.
Samson who was strong as death
Paid his strength to kiss a ****.
Othello that stiff warrior
Was broken by a woman's heart.
Troy burned for a sea-tax, also for
Possession of a charming whore.
What do all examples show?
What must the finished murderer know?
You cannot...Read more of this...
by
Sarojini Naidu
CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams,
Or carnival of careless joys that leap
About your hearts like billows on the deep
In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist
Till some resistless hour shall rise and move
Your hearts to wake and...Read more of this...
by
Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
i shall imagine life
is not worth dying if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain
but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose roses(you feel
certain)will only smile...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
'Twas fighting for his Life he was --
That sort accomplish well --
The Ordnance of Vitality
Is frugal of its Ball.
It aims once -- kills once -- conquers once --
There is no second War
In that Campaign inscrutable
Of the Interior....Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
He gave away his Life --
To Us -- Gigantic Sum --
A trifle -- in his own esteem --
But magnified -- by Fame --
Until it burst the Hearts
That fancied they could hold --
When swift it slipped its limit --
And on the Heavens -- unrolled --
'Tis Ours -- to wince -- and weep --
And wonder -- and decay
By Blossoms gradual process...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
They may rail at this life -- from the hour I began it
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes
As before me this moment enraptured I...Read more of this...
by
Grace Paley
My friend tells me
a man in my house jumped off the roof
the roof is the eighth floor of this building
the roof door was locked how did he manage?
his girlfriend had said goodbye I'm leaving
he was 22
his mother and father were hurrying
at that very moment
from upstate to help him move out of Brooklyn
they had heard about the girl
the people who...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when...Read more of this...
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