Famous About Time Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Every Time I Kiss You

by Nizar Qabbani
 Every time I kiss you
After a long separation
I feel
I am putting a hurried love letter
In a red mailbox....Read more of this...

I am older than Nature and her Time

by Fernando Pessoa
I am older than Nature and her Time

By all the timeless age of Consciousness,

And my adult oblivion of the clime

Where I was born makes me not countryless.

Ay, and dim through my daylight thoughts escape

Yearnings for that land where my childhood dreamed,

Which I cannot recall in colour or shape

But haunts my hours like something that hath gleamed

And yet is not as...Read more of this...

To Think of Time

by Walt Whitman
 1
TO think of time—of all that retrospection! 
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! 

Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue? 
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? 
Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing? 
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing. 

To think...Read more of this...

Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come

by William Shakespeare
 Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say, "This poet lies,
Such heavenly...Read more of this...

Dragged through the rapid course of time, which accords

by Omar Khayyam
Dragged through the rapid course of time, which accords
its favors only to the least worthy, my life is passed
in a gulf of grief and sorrow. In this garden of being,
my heart is hard as is the green bud of a rose; and like
a tulip, it is dipped in blood....Read more of this...

Time and Grief

by William Lisle Bowles
 O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence 
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) 
The faint pang stealest unperceived away; 
On thee I rest my only hope at last, 
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear 
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, 
I may...Read more of this...

Long Time I Lay In Little Ease

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE


LONG time I lay in little ease
Where, placed by the Turanian,
Marseilles, the many-masted, sees
The blue Mediterranean.

Now songful in the hour of sport,
Now riotous for wages,
She camps around her ancient port,
As ancient of the ages.

Algerian airs through all the place
Unconquerably sally;
Incomparable women pace
The shadows of the alley.

And high o'er dark and graving yard
And where...Read more of this...

I had no time to hate because

by Emily Dickinson
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me....Read more of this...

What time, my cup in hand, its draughts I drain,

by Omar Khayyam
What time, my cup in hand, its draughts I drain,
And with rapt heart unconsciousness attain,
Behold what wondrous miracles are wrought,
Songs flow as water from my burning brain....Read more of this...

Who Bides His Time

by James Whitcomb Riley
 Who bides his time, and day by day 
Faces defeat full patiently, 
And lifts a mirthful roundelay, 
However poor his fortunes be,-- 
He will not fail in any qualm 
Of poverty -- the paltry dime 
It will grow golden in his palm, 
Who bides his time.

Who bides his time -- he tastes the sweet 
Of honey in the saltest...Read more of this...

Time XXI

by Kahlil Gibran
 And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?" 

And he answered: 

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. 

You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons. 

Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. 

Yet the timeless in...Read more of this...

Oh! for the time when we shall be no more and the

by Omar Khayyam
Oh! for the time when we shall be no more and the
world shall still be here! There will remain no fame or
trace of us. The world was not unfinished when we
came; naught will be changed when we have gone
from it....Read more of this...

The Time I Like Best

by Roger McGough
 The time I like best is 6am
when the snow is 6 inches deep
which I'm yet to discover
'cause I'm under the covers
fast, fast asleep....Read more of this...

Winter-Time

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, 
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; 
Blinks but an hour or two; and then, 
A blood-red orange, sets again. 

Before the stars have left the skies, 
At morning in the dark I rise; 
And shivering in my nakedness, 
By the cold candle, bathe and dress. 

Close by the jolly fire I sit 
To warm my...Read more of this...

More Strong Than Time

by Victor Hugo
 ("Puisque j'ai mis ma lèvre à ta coupe.") 
 
 {XXV., Jan. 1, 1835.} 


 Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet, 
 Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid, 
 Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it, 
 And all the perfume rare, now buried...Read more of this...

One Wants A Teller In A Time Like This

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 One wants a teller in a time like this

One's not a man, one's not a woman grown
To bear enormous business all alone.

One cannot walk this winding street with pride
Straight-shouldered, tranquil-eyed,
Knowing one knows for sure the way back home.
One wonders if one has a home.

One is not certain if or why or how.
One wants a Teller now:

Put on your rubbers...Read more of this...

At This Moment Of Time

by Delmore Schwartz
 Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the...Read more of this...

Time And Life

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 I.

Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken
Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame
Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken,
Time, thy name.

Girt about with shadow, blind and lame,
Ghosts of things that smite and thoughts that sicken
Hunt and hound thee down to death and shame.

Eyes of hours whose paces halt or quicken
Read in bloodred lines of loss and...Read more of this...

The Present Time Best Pleaseth

by Robert Herrick
 Praise, they that will, times past: I joy to see
Myself now live; this age best pleaseth me!...Read more of this...

Sonnets XIX: Devouring Time blunt thou the lions paws

by William Shakespeare
 Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve...Read more of this...

Soon shall I go, by time and fate deplored,

by Omar Khayyam
Soon shall I go, by time and fate deplored,
Of all my precious pearls not one is bored;
Alas! there die with me a thousand truths
To which these fools fit audience ne'er accord....Read more of this...

To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time

by William Butler Yeats
 Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.
Come near, that no more blinded hy...Read more of this...

To The Virgins To Make Much Of Time

by Robert Herrick
 Gather ye rose-buds while ye may:
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the...Read more of this...

Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time

by William Shakespeare
 When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are...Read more of this...

Sonnet XVII: Stay Speedy Time

by Michael Drayton
 To Time

Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass, 
From age to age what thou hast sought to see, 
One in whom all the excellencies be, 
In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass. 
Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass, 
And thy youth past in this pure mirror see, 
As the world's beauty in his infancy, 
What is...Read more of this...

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