Famous A Friend Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous A Friend poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous a friend poems. These examples illustrate what a famous a friend poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Farewell, lov'd Youth! since 'twas the Will of Heaven 
So soon to take, what had so late been giv'n; 
And thus our Expectations to destroy, 
Raising a Grief, where we had form'd a Joy; 
Who once believ'd, it was the Fates Design 
In Him to double an Illustrious Line, 
And in a second Channel spread that Race 
Where ev'ry...Read more of this...

The Child Dying

by Edwin Muir
 Unfriendly friendly universe,
I pack your stars into my purse,
And bid you so farewell.
That I can leave you, quite go out,
Go out, go out beyond all doubt,
My father says, is the miracle.

You are so great, and I so small:
I am nothing, you are all:
Being nothing, I can take this way.
Oh I need neither rise nor fall,
For when I do not...Read more of this...

Behind the Arras

by Bliss Carman
 I like the old house tolerably well, 
Where I must dwell 
Like a familiar gnome; 
And yet I never shall feel quite at home. 
I love to roam. 
Day after day I loiter and explore 
From door to door; 
So many treasures lure 
The curious mind. What histories obscure 
They must immure! 

I hardly know which room I care...Read more of this...

Sylvias Death

by Anne Sexton
 for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia, 
with a dead box of stones and spoons, 
with two children, two meteors 
wandering loose in a tiny playroom, 
with your mouth into the sheet, 
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer, 
(Sylvia, Sylvia 
where did you go 
after you wrote me 
from Devonshire 
about rasing potatoes 
and keeping bees?) 
what did you stand...Read more of this...

To J. S

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those 
That are cast in gentle mould.
And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dare to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.
'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our...Read more of this...

All Souls Night

by William Butler Yeats
 Epilogue to "A Vision'

MIDNIGHT has come, and the great Christ Church Bell
And may a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Souls' Night,
And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;
For it is a ghost's right,
His element is so fine
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our gross palates drink...Read more of this...

Run to Death

by Amy Levy
 A True Incident of Pre-Revolutionary French History.


Now the lovely autumn morning breathes its freshness in earth's face,
In the crowned castle courtyard the blithe horn proclaims the chase;
And the ladies on the terrace smile adieux with rosy lips
To the huntsmen disappearing down the cedar-shaded groves,
Wafting delicate aromas from their scented finger tips,
And the gallants wave in answer, with their gold-embroidered...Read more of this...

Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia

by Rupert Brooke
 Swings the way still by hollow and hill,
And all the world's a song;
"She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me,
"Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"

Oh! spite of the miles and years between us,
Spite of your chosen part,
I do remember; and I go
With laughter in my heart.

So above the little folk that know not,
Out of the white hill-town,
High up...Read more of this...

A Sincere Man Am I

by José Martí
A sincere man am I
From the land where palm trees grow,
And I want before I die
My soul's verses to bestow.

I'm a traveler to all parts,
And a newcomer to none:
I am art among the arts,
With the mountains I am one.

I know how to name and class
All the strange flowers that grow;
I know every blade of grass,
Fatal lie and sublime woe.

I have...Read more of this...

Ballad of Dead Friends

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 As we the withered ferns 
By the roadway lying, 
Time, the jester, spurns 
All our prayers and prying -- 
All our tears and sighing, 
Sorrow, change, and woe -- 
All our where-and-whying 
For friends that come and go. 

Life awakes and burns, 
Age and death defying, 
Till at last it learns 
All but Love is dying; 
Love's the trade...Read more of this...

The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter

by Hilaire Belloc
 When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would:
All that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.

When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:

"If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and...Read more of this...

Bein' Back Home

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Home agin, an' home to stay—
Yes, it's nice to be away.
Plenty things to do an' see,
But the old place seems to me
Jest about the proper thing.
Mebbe 'ts 'cause the mem'ries cling
Closer 'round yore place o' birth
'N ary other spot on earth.
W'y it's nice jest settin' here,
Lookin' out an' seein' clear,
'Thout no smoke, ner dust, ner haze
In these sweet October days.
What's...Read more of this...

The Haystack in the Floods

by William Morris
 Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?

Along the dripping leafless woods,
The stirrup touching either shoe,
She rode astride as troopers do;
With kirtle kilted to her knee,
To which the mud splash'd wretchedly;
And the wet dripp'd...Read more of this...

Prothalamion

by Delmore Schwartz
 "little soul, little flirting,
 little perverse one
 where are you off to now?
 little wan one, firm one
 little exposed one...
 and never make fun of me again."


Now I must betray myself.
The feast of bondage and unity is near,
And none engaged in that great piety
When each bows to the other, kneels, and takes
Hand in hand, glance and glance, care...Read more of this...

April Byeway

by Edmund Blunden
    Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
    In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
    Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
  ...Read more of this...

Elegy to the Memory of David Garrick Esq

by Mary Darby Robinson
 DEAR SHADE OF HIM, who grac'd the mimick scene,
And charm'd attention with resistless pow'r;
Whose wond'rous art, whose fascinating mien,
Gave glowing rapture to the short-liv'd hour! 

Accept the mournful verse, the ling'ring sigh,
The tear that faithful Mem'ry stays to shed;
The SACRED TEAR, that from Reflection's eye,
Drops on the ashes of the sainted dead. 

Lov'd by the grave, and courted by...Read more of this...

Prelude

by Robert William Service
 Alas! upon some starry height,
The Gods of Excellence to please,
This hand of mine will never smite
The Harp of High Serenities.
Mere minstrel of the street am I,
To whom a careless coin you fling;
But who, beneath the bitter sky,
Blue-lipped, yet insolent of eye,
Can shrill a song of Spring;
A song of merry mansard days,
The cheery chimney-tops among;
Of rolics and of roundelays
When we...Read more of this...

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (Sonnet 30)

by William Shakespeare
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many...Read more of this...

Mine Own John Poynz

by Sir Thomas Wyatt
 Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know
The cause why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the press of courts, whereso they go,
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Of lordly looks, wrappèd within my cloak,
To will and lust learning to set a law:
It is not for because I scorn or mock
The power of them, to whom fortune...Read more of this...

A Satirical Elegy

by Jonathan Swift
 On the Death of a Late FAMOUS GENERAL


His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so...Read more of this...

Rugby Chapel

by Matthew Arnold
 Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent;--hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows;--but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the...Read more of this...

Burning of the Exeter Theatre

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1887, which many people will long remember,
The burning of the Theatre at Exeter on the 5th of September,
Alas! that ever-to-be-remembered and unlucky night,
When one hundred and fifty lost their lives, a most agonising sight. 

The play on this night was called "Romany Rye,"
And at act four, scene third, Fire! Fire! was the cry;
And all...Read more of this...

Bill and Joe

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by,
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew,
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;
To-day, old...Read more of this...

Poem To Be Placed In A Bottle And Cast Out To Sea

by Barry Tebb
 for Ken Kesey and his merry pranksters in a bus called ‘Further...’





Dear _______ and here’s where the problem begins

For who shall I address this letter to?

Friends are few and very special, muses in the main

I must confess, the first I lost just fifty years ago.

Perhaps the best.



I searched for years and wrote en route

‘Bridge Over the Aire’ after that...Read more of this...

The City of the Dead XX

by Kahlil Gibran
 Yesterday I drew myself from the noisome throngs and proceeded into the field until I reached a knoll upon which Nature had spread her comely garments. Now I could breathe. 

I looked back, and the city appeared with its magnificent mosques and stately residences veiled by the smoke of the shops. 

I commenced analyzing man's mission, but could conclude...Read more of this...

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