Famous Alternation Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Change

...n year
Is not the same; our dearest aim, or need, 
Our lightest thought, or feeling hope, or fear, 
All, all the law of alternation heed.

How can we ask the human heart to stay, 
Content with fancies of Youth’s earliest hours? 
The year outgrows the violets of May, 
Although, maybe, there are no fairer flowers.

And life may hold no sweeter love than this, 
Which lies so cold, so voiceless, and so dumb, 
And will I miss it, dear? Why, yes, we miss
The violets always – till t...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler


Corn

...thy mild content rebukes the land
Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand
Of trade, for ever rise and fall
With alternation whimsical,
Enduring scarce a day,
Then swept away
By swift engulfments of incalculable tides
Whereon capricious Commerce rides.
Look, thou substantial spirit of content!
Across this little vale, thy continent,
To where, beyond the mouldering mill,
Yon old deserted Georgian hill
Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest
And seamy breast,
By restless...Read more of this...
by Lanier, Sidney

In the Home Stretch

...like to own to out that window.”

“No; for besides the things I tell you of,
I only see the years. They come and go
In alternation with the weeds, the field,
The wood.”

“What kind of years?”
“Why, latter years—
Different from early years.”
“I see them, too.
You didn’t count them?”
“No, the further off
So ran together that I didn’t try to.
It can scarce be that they would be in number
We’d care to know, for we are not young now.
And bang goes something else away off there.
I...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

October

...s warm to the gaze; and now I might 
As happy be as earth is beautiful, 
Were I some other or with earth could turn 
In alternation of violet and rose, 
Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due, 
And gorse that has no time not to be gay. 
But if this be not happiness, -- who knows? 
Some day I shall think this a happy day, 
And this mood by the name of melancholy 
Shall no more blackened and obscured be....Read more of this...
by Belloc, Hilaire

The Sphinx

...t
In stings of remorse.
Have I a lover
Who is noble and free?--
I would he were nobler
Than to love me.

"Eterne alternation
Now follows, now flies;
And under pain, pleasure,--
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

"Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits;
Thy sight is growing blear;
Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx,
Her muddy eyes to clear!"
The old Sphinx bit her t...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo


The Sphynx

...test
Lurks in stings of remorse.
Have I a lover
Who is noble and free,?
I would he were nobler
Than to love me.

Eterne alternation
Now follows, now flies,
And under pain, pleasure,
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

Dull Sphynx, Jove keep thy five wits!
Thy sight is growing blear,
Rue, myrrh, and cummin for the Sphynx,
Her muddy eyes to clear."
The old Sphynx bit her thick lip,?
"Who...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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