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Famous Affair Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Milosz, Czeslaw
...s one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."

To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?

Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
...Read more of this...



by Hikmet, Nazim
...tulle curtain 
in your life; 
there's no need to choose freedom: 
you are free. 
But this kind of freedom 
is a sad affair under the stars....Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...
Poor fellow! his feet was greatly swollen, and with a melancholy air,
He gave the following account of the distressing affair: 

We belonged to the American fishing schooner named "Cicely",
And our captain was a brave man, called McKenzie;
And the vessel had fourteen hands altogether
And during the passage we had favourable weather. 

'Twas on March the 17th we sailed from Gloucester on the Wednesday
And all our hearts felt buoyant and gay;
And we arrived on the Western ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
..."Angels of the love affair, do you know that other,
the dark one, that other me?"

1. ANGEL OF FIRE AND GENITALS

Angel of fire and genitals, do you know slime,
that green mama who first forced me to sing,
who put me first in the latrine, that pantomime
of brown where I was beggar and she was king?
I said, "The devil is down that festering hole."
Then he bit me in the b...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...ks at the pond at times;
The place is silent and aware;
It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes,
But that is its own affair.

XXI.

My perfect wife, my Leonor,
Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too,
Whom else could I dare look backward for,
With whom beside should I dare pursue
The path grey heads abhor?

XXII.

For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them;
Youth, flowery all the way, there stops---
Not they; age threatens and they contemn,
Till they reach the g...Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...they shone—
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone—

She never deemed—she hurt—
That—is not Steel's Affair—
A vulgar grimace in the Flesh—
How ill the Creatures bear—

To Ache is human—not polite—
The Film upon the eye
Mortality's old Custom—
Just locking up—to Die.

486

I was the slightest in the House—
I took the smallest Room—
At night, my little Lamp, and Book—
And one Geranium—

So stationed I could catch the Mint
That never ceas...Read more of this...

by Estep, Maggie
...plenty of room, 
don't sit so close to me.

Hey, where are you? 
I haven't seen you in days.
Whadya, having an affair?
Who is she? 
Come on, 
aren't I enough for you?

God,
You're so cold.
I never know what you're thinking.
You're not very affectionate.

I mean, 
you're clinging to me, 
DON'T TOUCH ME,
what am I, your fucking cat?
Don't rub me like that. 

Don't you have anything better to do
than sit there fawning over me?

Don't you have any interes...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.
"She has a face unlike that of any woman I have ever known."
"What is it? A love affair?"
"Silly. I can't love a woman. Besides, she's pregnant."
I can paint- a flower eaten by a snake; that sunlight is a 
lie; and that markets smell of shoes and naked boys clothed,
and that under everything some river, some beat, some twist that
clambers along the edge of my temple and bites nip-dizzy. . .
men drive cars and pain...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...vine and is a minister of temperance. 

Let Zohar rejoice with Cychramus who cometh with the quails on a particular affair. 

Let Serah, the daughter of Asher, rejoice with Ceyx, who maketh his cabin in the Halcyon's hold. 

Let Magdiel rejoice with Ascarides, which is the life of the bowels -- the worm hath a part in our frame. 

Let Becher rejoice with Oscen who terrifies the wicked, as trumpet and alarm the coward. 

Let Shaul rejoice with Circos, who h...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
..., I have two.
I should sit on a rock off Cornwall and comb my hair.
I should wear tiger pants, I should have an affair.
We should meet in another life, we should meet in air,
Me and you.

Meanwhile there's a stink of fat and baby crap.
I'm doped and thick from my last sleeping pill.
The smog of cooking, the smog of hell
Floats our heads, two venemous opposites,
Our bones, our hair.
I call you Orphan, orphan. You are ill.
The sun gives you u...Read more of this...

by Hughes, Langston
...Alberta K. Johnson
Can't do--and more, too?

What's that, Central?
You say you don't care
Nothing about my
Private affair?

Well, even less about your
PHONE BILL, does I care!

Un-humm-m! . . . Yes!
You say I gave my O.K.?
Well, that O.K. you may keep--

But I sure ain't gonna pay!...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...unting herds,
Graced by each change of sum untold,
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.

The Titan minds his sky-affairs,
Rich rents and wide alliance shares;
Mysteries of color daily laid
By the great sun in light and shade,
And, sweet varieties of chance,
And the mystic seasons' dance,
And thief-like step of liberal hours
Which thawed the snow-drift into flowers.
O wondrous craft of plant and stone
By eldest science done and shown!
Happy, I said, whose home is he...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...The cop read him the riot act. "I don't care," he said, "if you're Walt 
 Whitman." 

Donna told Beth about her affair with Walt Whitman. 
"He was indefatigable, but he wasn't Ted Berrigan."
The Dow Jones industrials finished higher, led by Philip Levine, 
up a point and a half on strong earnings. Marvin Bell 
ended the day unchanged. Analyst Richard Howard
recommended buying May Swenson and selling Anne Sexton.

In the old days, you liked either W...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...The end of the affair is always death. 
She's my workshop. Slippery eye, 
out of the tribe of myself my breath 
finds you gone. I horrify 
those who stand by. I am fed. 
At night, alone, I marry the bed. 
Finger to finger, now she's mine. 
She's not too far. She's my encounter. 
I beat her like a bell. I recline 
in the bower where y...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...skew, but braced with wires, 
and electricity, possibly 
--at least, at the back another wire 
limply leashes the whole affair 
to something off behind the dunes. 
A light to read by--perfect! But--impossible. 
And that day the wind was much too cold 
even to get that far, 
and of course the house was boarded up. 

On the way back our faces froze on the other side. 
The sun came out for just a minute. 
For just a minute, set in their bezels of sand, 
the d...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...r fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find -- it's your own affair --
But . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit hat answered your every mood
Is gone -- wherever it goes -- for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorro...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...ll pistol when he snapped it shut 
At such a time as this. He snapped it now. 
"Well, Anne, go, dearie. Our affair will wait. 
The lawyer man is thinking of his train. 
He wants to give me lots and lots of money 
Before he goes, because I hurt myself, 
And it may take him I don't know how long. 
But put our flowers in water first. Will, help her: 
The pitcher's too full for her. There's no cup? 
Just hook them on the inside of the pitcher. ...Read more of this...

by Jeffers, Robinson
...Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening
The stars go over the lonely ocean,
And a black-maned wild boar
Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,
Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.
The best nation in Europe has fallen,
And that is Finland,
But the s...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...this?' cried Michael; 'why, 'tis not a ghost?' 
'I know it,' quoth the incubus; 'but he 
Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me. 

LXXXVI

'Confound the renegado! I have sprain'd 
My left wing, he's so heavy; one would think 
Some of his works about his neck were chain'd. 
But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink 
Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain'd), 
I saw a taper, far below me, wink, 
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel — 
No less on hist...Read more of this...

by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...,
With well-a-day for Mr. Swin-Burne!
Take then this quarto in thy fin
And, O thou stoker huge and stern,
The whole affair, outside and in,
Burn!
But save the true poetic kin,
The works of Mr. Robert Burn'
And William Wordsworth upon Tin-Tern!...Read more of this...

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