Famous Beings Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Song at Sunset

by Walt Whitman
 SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me! 
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past! 
Inflating my throat—you, divine average! 
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. 

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, 
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; 
Corroborating forever the triumph of things. 

Illustrious every one! 
Illustrious what...Read more of this...

There are some ignorant beings who have never passed

by Omar Khayyam
There are some ignorant beings who have never passed
a night in quest of truth, who have never taken a step
outside themselves, who show themselves clothed in the
garments of great lords and who are pleased to slander
those whose conduct is irreproachable.
325...Read more of this...

The Thread of Truth

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there
In small bright specks upon the visible side
Of our strange being's parti-coloured web.
How rich the universe! 'Tis a vein of ore
Emerging now and then on Earth's rude breast,
But flowing full below. Like islands set
At distant intervals on Ocean's face,
We see it on our course; but in the depths
The mystic colonnade unbroken...Read more of this...

Sleep Spaces

by Robert Desnos
 In the night there are of course the seven wonders
of the world and the greatness tragedy and enchantment.
Forests collide with legendary creatures hiding in thickets.
There is you.
In the night there are the walker's footsteps the murderer's
the town policeman's light from the street lamp and the ragman's lantern
There is you.
In the night trains go past and boats
and the fantasy of...Read more of this...

Expostulation And Reply

by William Wordsworth
  "Why, William, on that old grey stone,  Thus for the length of half a day,  Why, William, sit you thus alone,  And dream your time away?"   "Where are your books? that light bequeath'd  To beings else forlorn and blind!  Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd  From dead men to their kind."   "You look round on your mother earth,  As if she for no purpose bore you;  As...Read more of this...

Marriage Thoughts: by Morsellin Khan

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   Bridegroom
   I give you my house and my lands, all golden with harvest;
   My sword, my shield, and my jewels, the spoils of my strife,
   My strength and my dreams, and aught I have gathered of glory,
   And to-night—to-night, I shall give you my very life.

   Bride
...Read more of this...

Thoughts On The Works Of Providence

by Phillis Wheatley
 A R I S E, my soul, on wings enraptur'd, rise
To praise the monarch of the earth and skies,
Whose goodness and benificence appear
As round its centre moves the rolling year,
Or when the morning glows with rosy charms,
Or the sun slumbers in the ocean's arms:
Of light divine be a rich portion lent
To guide my soul, and favour my intend.
Celestial muse,...Read more of this...

Plead For Me

by Emily Brontë
 Oh, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
Oh, thy sweet tongue must plead for me
And tell, why I have chosen thee! 

Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say,
Why I did cast the world away. 

Why I...Read more of this...

Severer Service of myself

by Emily Dickinson
 Severer Service of myself
I -- hastened to demand
To fill the awful Vacuum
Your life had left behind --

I worried Nature with my Wheels
When Hers had ceased to run --
When she had put away Her Work
My own had just begun.

I strove to weary Brain and Bone --
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves --
Vitality to clog

To some dull comfort Those...Read more of this...

The Poet VIII

by Kahlil Gibran
 He is a link between this and the coming world. 
He is 
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. 


He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing 
Fruit which the hungry heart craves; 
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed 
Spirit with his beautiful melodies; 
He is a white cloud appearing over the...Read more of this...

The Buried Life

by Matthew Arnold
 Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush...Read more of this...

On Love

by Bliss Carman
 TO the assembled folk 
At great St. Kavin’s spoke 
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve; 
I give you joy, my friends, 
That as the round year ends, 
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave. 

On other festal days 
For penitence or praise 
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving; 
To-night we calendar 
The rising of that...Read more of this...

People

by Jean Toomer
 To those fixed on white,
White is white,
To those fixed on black,
It is the same,
And red is red,
Yellow, yellow-
Surely there are such sights
In the many colored world,
Or in the mind.
The strange thing is that
These people never see themselves
Or you, or me.

Are they not in their minds?
Are we not in the world?
This is a curious blindness
For those that are color blind.
What...Read more of this...

Not-being's water served to mix my clay,

by Omar Khayyam
Not-being's water served to mix my clay,
And on my heart grief's fire doth ever prey,
And blown am I like wind about the world,
And last my crumbling earth is swept away....Read more of this...

Philology Recapitulates Ontology Poetry Is Ontology

by Delmore Schwartz
 Faithful to your commandments, o consciousness, o

Holy bird of words soaring ever whether to nothingness or
 to inconceivable fulfillment slowly:

And still I follow you, awkward as that dandy of ontology
 and as awkward as his albatross and as

another dandy of ontology before him, another shepherd
 and watchdog of being, the one who

Talked forever of forever as if forever of...Read more of this...

Satire On The Earth

by Victor Hugo
 ("Une terre au flanc maigre.") 
 
 {Bk. III. xi., October, 1840.} 


 A clod with rugged, meagre, rust-stained, weather-worried face, 
 Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race; 
 And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil, 
 Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil; 
 Made harder by their gloom...Read more of this...

Buried Life The

by Matthew Arnold
 Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush...Read more of this...

Universal Prayer

by Alexander Pope
 Father of all! In every age, 
 In ev'ry clime ador'd, 
By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! 

Thou Great First Cause, least understood, 
 Who all my sense confin'd 
To know but this, that Thou art good, 
 And that myself am blind: 

Yet gave me, in this dark estate, 
 To see...Read more of this...

Behind the Arras

by Bliss Carman
 I like the old house tolerably well, 
Where I must dwell 
Like a familiar gnome; 
And yet I never shall feel quite at home. 
I love to roam. 
Day after day I loiter and explore 
From door to door; 
So many treasures lure 
The curious mind. What histories obscure 
They must immure! 

I hardly know which room I care...Read more of this...

The Woman At The Washington Zoo

by Randall Jarrell
 The saris go by me from the embassies.

Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. 
They look back at the leopard like the leopard.

And I. . . .
 this print of mine, that has kept its color
Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null
Navy I wear to work, and wear from work, and so
To my bed, so to my...Read more of this...

In Being's rondure do we stray belated,

by Omar Khayyam
In Being's rondure do we stray belated,
Our pride of manhood humbled and abated;
Would we were gone! long since have we been wearied
With this world's griefs, and with its pleasures sated....Read more of this...

To Those Born After

by Bertolt Brecht
 To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much...Read more of this...

Thou hast put in us an irresistible passion (which is

by Omar Khayyam
Thou hast put in us an irresistible passion [which is
equivalent to an order from Thee], and, on the other
hand, forbiddest us to give way to it. Poor human
beings are in extreme embarrassment between this order
and this prohibition, for it is as if Thou commandest me
to upset the cup but refrain from spilling the contents....Read more of this...

The touch of Zephyr (SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMS)

by Horace
The touch of Zephyr and of Spring has loosen'd Winter's thrall;
       The well-dried keels are wheel'd again to sea:
     The ploughman cares not for his fire, nor cattle for their stall,
       And frost no more is whitening all the lea.
    ...Read more of this...

Morning Worship

by Mark Van Doren
 I wake and hearing it raining.
Were I dead, what would I give
Lazily to lie here,
Like this, and live?

Or better yet: birdsong,
Brightening and spreading --
How far would I come then
To be at the world's wedding?

Now that I lie, though,
Listening, living,
(Oh, but not forever,
Oh, end arriving)

How shall I praise them:
All the sweet beings
Eternally that outlive
Me and my dying?

Mountains, I mean; wind,...Read more of this...

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