Famous Art Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Art poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous art poems. These examples illustrate what a famous art poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther losing faster:
places and names and where it was your meant
to travel. None of these...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O my heart! when thou art admitted to sit at the banquet
of this idol [the Divinity], it is after thou hast gone
out of thyself in order to re-enter thyself again. When
thou hast tasted a mouthful of the wine of annihilation,
thou art entirely separate from those that are and from
those that are no more....Read more of this...
by
Stephen Crane
Tradition, thou art for suckling children,
Thou art the enlivening milk for babes;
But no meat for men is in thee.
Then --
But, alas, we all are babes....Read more of this...
by
Hafez
When thou art gone, & when are gone all those
That knew thee & that loved thy living grace,
Merged in the formless flood whence all arose,
When thou hast passed, & of thy life no trace
Remaineth, nor remembrancer to say
‘Such was he, such his form, his voice, his face’,
In that new time shall rise, untouched by thee,
The eddying circles still, & pass...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Love! while yet you can, with tender art,
Lift sorrow's burden from your lover's heart;
Your wealth of graces will not always last,
But slip from your possession, and depart!...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
The young queen Nature, ever sweet and fair,
Once on a time fell upon evil days.
From hearing oft herself discussed with praise,
There grew within her heart the longing rare
To see herself; and every passing air
The warm desire fanned into lusty blaze.
Full oft she sought this end by devious ways,
But sought in vain, so fell she in despair.
For none within her train...Read more of this...
by
Emma Lazarus
Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-sould to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain...Read more of this...
by
Denise Levertov
That dog with daisies for eyes
who flashes forth
flame of his very self at every bark
is the Dog of Art.
Worked in wool, his blind eyes
look inward to caverns and jewels
which they see perfectly,
and his voice
measures forth the treasure
in music sharp and loud,
sharp and bright,
bright flaming barks,
and growling smoky soft, the Dog
of Art turns to the world
the quietness of his...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O my God! Thou art merciful, and mercy is kindness.
Why then has the first sinner been thrown out of
the terrestrial Paradise? If Thou pardonest me when
I obey Thee, it is not mercy. Mercy is present only
when Thou pardonest me as the sinner that I am....Read more of this...
by
Jorge Luis Borges
To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year...Read more of this...
by
Anne Sexton
A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren't enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.
She thinks she can warn the stars.
A writer is essentially a spy.
Dear love, I am that girl.
A man who writes knows too much,
such spells and fetiches!
As if erections and congresses and products
weren't enough; as...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Art not ashamed to give thyself to corruption?—to
neglect thus both what is commanded and what is forbidden?
Even if you succeed in appropriating all the
goods of the earth to yourself, what can you do with
them except to abandon them in your turn?...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O Thou who in the universe art the object chosen
of my heart! Thou who art more dear than the soul
which gives me life, than the eyes which give me light!
O Idol, though in life there be no thing more precious
than this life, Thou art indeed a hundred times more
precious than that life....Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain,
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so,
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Be welcome, Thou, who art the repose of my soul!
Thou art here, and nevertheless I cannot believe my
eyes. Oh! for the love of God, and not for the love
of my heart, drink, drink of wine, drink to the point
when I can doubt that it is Thou.
389...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Be attentive, friend, and while thou still art able, lighten
the grief of a loving heart, for this kingdom of grace
that now thou hast will not last always, but, like so many
others thou shalt unexpectedly be called....Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned
By sickness, death's herald, and champion;
Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled;
Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself delivered from prison,
But damned and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Sometimes Thou art concealed, showing Thyself to
none; sometimes Thou revealest Thyself in all things
created. It is for Thyself, without doubt, and for Thy
pleasure that Thou hast produced these marvellous effects,
for Thou art at once the maker of the spectacle we see
and Thine own beholder....Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Young wooer, charm all hearts with lover's art,
Glad winner, lead thy paragon apart!
A hundred Ka'bas equal not one heart,
Seek not the Ka'ba, rather seek a heart!...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
When I behold a forest spread
With silken trees upon thy head;
And when I see that other dress
Of flowers set in comeliness;
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,
Which, like a pinnacle, doth shew
The top, and the top-gallant too;
Then, when I see thy tresses bound
Into an oval, square, or round,
And knit in knots far more than I.
Can tell...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
O thou who art the result of the four [elements] and
the seven [heavens], I see you in perplexity amongst
these four and seven. Drink wine, for, as I have said
to you more than four times, you will return no more;
once departed, you are gone indeed....Read more of this...
by
Billy Collins
And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.
Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,
how did they ever manage to find...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Carew
Know, Celia, since thou art so proud,
'Twas I that gave thee thy renown.
Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties lived unknown
Had not my verse extolled thy name,
And with it imped the wings of Fame.
That killing power is none of thine;
I gave it to thy voice and eyes.
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
Thou art my star, shin'st in...Read more of this...
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