Famous Awaken Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Put up my lute!

by Emily Dickinson
 Put up my lute!
What of -- my Music!
Since the sole ear I cared to charm --
Passive -- as Granite -- laps My Music --
Sobbing -- will suit -- as well as psalm!

Would but the "Memnon" of the Desert --
Teach me the strain
That vanquished Him --
When He -- surrendered to the Sunrise --
Maybe -- that -- would awaken -- them!...Read more of this...

What Can We Do?

by Charles Bukowski
 at their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.
some understanding and, at times, acts of
courage
but all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn't
have too much.
it is like a large animal deep in sleep and
almost nothing can awaken it.
when activated it's best at brutality,
selfishness, unjust judgments, murder. 
what can we do with it, this Humanity? 
nothing. 
avoid the...Read more of this...

Morning

by Dejan Stojanovic
He placed a rose on the bed-stand 
While she was sleeping. 
His wake-up message on the stand— 
Her smile on his face—awaken bliss. 

Remembrance; 
Memory box opened; 
Anticipation; 
Future opened and saved. 

Back and forth 
Through memory and experience, 
She recognizes this morning 
In her awakened spirit. 

She recognizes the mist, 
The rose, the moist grass; 
She recognizes his enlightened...Read more of this...

The Garden Shukkei-en

by Carolyn Forche
 By way of a vanished bridge we cross this river
as a cloud of lifted snow would ascend a mountain.

She has always been afraid to come here.

It is the river she most 
remembers, the living
and the dead both crying for help.

A world that allowed neither tears nor lamentation.

The matsu trees brush her hair as she passes
beneath them, as do the...Read more of this...

Siege Perilous

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Long warned of many terrors more severe 
To scorch him than hell’s engines could awaken, 
He scanned again, too far to be so near, 
The fearful seat no man had ever taken. 

So many other men with older eyes
Than his to see with older sight behind them 
Had known so long their one way to be wise,— 
Was any...Read more of this...

Ghana Calls

by W. E. B. Du Bois
I was a little boy, at home with strangers.   
I liked my playmates, and knew well,   
Whence all their parents came; 
From England, Scotland, royal France   
From Germany and oft by chance 
The humble Emerald Isle. 

But my brown skin and close-curled hair 
Was alien, and how it grew, none knew; 
Few tried to...Read more of this...

The Conspiracy

by Robert Creeley
 You send me your poems,
I'll send you mine.

Things tend to awaken
even through random communication

Let us suddenly
proclaim spring. And jeer

at the others,
all the others.

I will send a picture too
if you will send me one of you....Read more of this...

Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica)

by Jean Cocteau
 ...Preamble

A rough draft 
for an ars poetica

. . . . . . . 

Let's get our dreams unstuck

The grain of rye
free from the prattle of grass
et loin de arbres orateurs

I 

plant

it

It will sprout


But forget about 
the rustic festivities

For the explosive word 
falls harmlessly
eternal through
the compact generations 

and except for you

 nothing 
 denotates

its sweet-scented dynamite

Greetings
I discard eloquence
the empty sail
and...Read more of this...

The Happy Townland

by William Butler Yeats
 There's many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two,
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.

The little fox...Read more of this...

How Is Your Heart?

by Charles Bukowski
 during my worst times
 on the park benches
 in the jails
 or living with
 whores
 I always had this certain
 contentment-
 I wouldn't call it
 happiness-
 it was more of an inner
 balance 
 that settled for
 whatever was occuring
 and it helped in the
 factories
 and when relationships 
 went wrong
 with the 
 girls. 
 it helped...Read more of this...

Galahad Knight Who Perished

by Vachel Lindsay
 A POEM DEDICATED TO ALL CRUSADERS AGAINST THE INTERNATIONAL AND INTERSTATE TRAFFIC IN YOUNG GIRLS


Galahad . . . soldier that perished . . . ages ago,
Our hearts are breaking with shame, our tears overflow.
Galahad . . . knight who perished . . . awaken again,
Teach us to fight for immaculate ways among men.
Soldiers fantastic, we pray to the star...Read more of this...

I Went Down into the Desert

by Vachel Lindsay
 I went down into the desert
To meet Elijah—
Arisen from the dead.
I thought to. find him in an echoing cave;
For so my dream had said.

I went down into the desert
To meet John the Baptist.
I walked with feet that bled,
Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold.
I spied foul fiends instead.

I went down into the desert
To meet my God.
By him be...Read more of this...

Theres Another Blessed Horse Fell Down

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 When you're lying in your hammock, sleeping soft and sleeping sound, 
Without a care or trouble on your mind, 
And there's nothing to disturb you but the engines going round, 
And you're dreaming of the girl you left behind; 
In the middle of your joys you'll be wakened by a noise 
And a clatter on the deck above your...Read more of this...

396. Song—Wandering Willie

by Robert Burns
 HERE awa, there awa, wandering Willie,
 Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;
Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie,
 And tell me thou bring’st me my Willie the same.
Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;
 It was na the blast brought the tear in my e’e:
Now welcome the Simmer, and welcome my Willie,
 The Simmer to...Read more of this...

Song of the Flower XXIII

by Kahlil Gibran
 I am a kind word uttered and repeated 
By the voice of Nature; 
I am a star fallen from the 
Blue tent upon the green carpet. 
I am the daughter of the elements 
With whom Winter conceived; 
To whom Spring gave birth; I was 
Reared in the lap of Summer and I 
Slept in the bed of Autumn. 


At...Read more of this...

The Last Question

by Dorothy Parker
 New love, new love, where are you to lead me?
All along a narrow way that marks a crooked line.
How are you to slake me, and how are you to feed me?
With bitter yellow berries, and a sharp new wine.

New love, new love, shall I be forsaken?
One shall go a-wandering, and one of us must sigh.
Sweet it is to slumber,...Read more of this...

The Giant In Glee

by Victor Hugo
 ("Ho, guerriers! je suis né dans le pays des Gaules.") 
 
 {V., March 11, 1825.} 


 Ho, warriors! I was reared in the land of the Gauls; 
 O'er the Rhine my ancestors came bounding like balls 
 Of the snow at the Pole, where, a babe, I was bathed 
 Ere in bear and in walrus-skin I...Read more of this...

The Human Face

by Paul Eluard
 I. Soon 

Of all the springtimes of the world 
This one is the ugliest 
Of all of my ways of being 
To be trusting is the best 

Grass pushes up snow 
Like the stone of a tomb 
But I sleep within the storm 
And awaken eyes bright 

Slowness, brief time ends 
Where all streets must pass 
Through my innermost...Read more of this...

new age

by Rg Gregory
 (i)
how new the world is
trying to find
nerve in an old rind

(ii)
the bread is crumbled
for birds to swallow
rolled into droppings
flowers from the hair
of noseless statues
tyrants of parks
where men have cowered
too long and mistaken
unmanned by he dark

(iii)
when we awaken
(how have we fallen)
machines are broken
wires lie strangled
by the messages they nursed
lathes are swinging
from trees in derision
pipes burst and scalded
houses contorted
(what went on...Read more of this...

To Minna

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Do I dream? can I trust to my eye?
My sight sure some vapor must cover?
Or, there, did my Minna pass by--
My Minna--and knew not her lover?
On the arm of the coxcomb she crossed,
Well the fan might its zephyr bestow;
Herself in her vanity lost,
That wanton my Minna?--Ah, no!

In the gifts of my love she was dressed,
My plumes o'er her summer...Read more of this...

True

by Charles Bukowski
 one of Lorca's best lines
is,
"agony, always
agony ..." 
think of this when you
kill a 
cockroach or
pick up a razor to 
shave 
or awaken in the morning
to 
face the
sun....Read more of this...

The Town Down by the River

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 I

Said the Watcher by the Way 
To the young and the unladen, 
To the boy and to the maiden, 
"God be with you both to-day. 
First your song came ringing, 
Now you come, you two-- 
Knowing naught of what you do, 
Or of what your dreams are bringing.

"O you children who go singing 
To the Town down the River,...Read more of this...

The Island

by Edith Nesbit
 Does the wind sing in your ears at night, in the town, 
Rattling the windows and doors of the cheap-built place? 
Do you hear its song as it flies over marsh and down? 
Do you feel the kiss that the wind leaves here on my face? 
Or, wrapt in a lamplit quiet, do you restrain 
Thoughts that would take...Read more of this...

Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth

by William Morris
 Love is enough: cherish life that abideth,
Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him;
For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth,
On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth?
And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him
For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?...Read more of this...

Mary - A Ballad

by Robert Southey
 Author Note: The story of the following ballad was related to me, when a school boy, as a fact which had really happened in the North of England. I have
adopted the metre of Mr. Lewis's Alonzo and Imogene--a poem deservedly
popular.


I.

Who is she, the poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
Seem a heart overcharged to express?
She weeps not, yet often and deeply...Read more of this...

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