Famous Belonging Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Destroying Angel

by William Topaz McGonagall
 I dreamt a dream the other night
That an Angel appeared to me, clothed in white.
Oh! it was a beautiful sight,
Such as filled my heart with delight. 

And in her hand she held a flaming brand,
Which she waved above her head most grand;
And on me she glared with love-beaming eyes,
Then she commanded me from my bed to arise. 

And in...Read more of this...

Freedoms Plow

by Langston Hughes
 When a man starts out with nothing,
 When a man starts out with his hands
 Empty, but clean,
 When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on...Read more of this...

The Marionettes Of Distant Masters

by Russell Edson
 A pianist dreams that he's hired by a wrecking company to 
ruin a piano with his fingers . . . 
 On the day of the piano wrecking concert, as he's 
dressing, he notices a butterfly annoying a flower in his window 
box. He wonders if the police should be called. Then he thinks 
maybe the butterfly is just...Read more of this...

Peter Anderson And Co

by Henry Lawson
 He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago, 
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.', 
But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood -- 
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good. 
'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had -- 
He was fond of beer and leisure --...Read more of this...

Donica - A Ballad

by Robert Southey
 Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein
very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which
foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer
belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in...Read more of this...

Beautiful Monikie

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Monikie! with your trees and shrubberies green
And your beautiful walks, most charming to be seen:
'Tis a beautiful place for pleasure-seekers to resort,
Because there they can have innocent sport,
taking a leisure walk all round about,
And see the ang1ers fishing in the pand for trout. 

Besides, there's lovely white swans swimming on the pond,
And Panmure Monument can be seen a...Read more of this...

To The Countess Granville

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 MY DEAR LADY GRANVILLE,--

THE reluctance which must naturally be felt by any one in
venturing to give to the world a book such as the present, where
the beauties of the great original must inevitably be diminished,
if not destroyed, in the process of passing through the
translator's hands, cannot but be felt in all its force when that
translator has not penetrated beyond...Read more of this...

The Death of Lord and Lady Dalhousie

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last,
Which causes many people to feel a little downcast;
And both lie side by side in one grave,
But I hope God in His goodness their souls will save. 

And may He protect their children that are left behind,
And may they always food and raiment find;
And from the paths of virtue...Read more of this...

Johanna Sebus

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [To the memory of an excellent and beautiful 
girl of 17, belonging to the village of Brienen, who perished on 
the 13th of January, 1809, whilst giving help on the occasion of 
the breaking up of the ice on the Rhine, and the bursting of the 
dam of Cleverham.]

THE DAM BREAKS DOWN, THE ICE-PLAIN GROWLS,
THE FLOODS ARISE, THE WATER...Read more of this...

The Break Away

by Anne Sexton
 Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the Jew in me,
but still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us—
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up...Read more of this...

Four Quartets 2: East Coker

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...Read more of this...

The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man

by Anne Sexton
 Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
LIke Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
are all used up.
But as for me,
look into my face
and you will know that crimes dropped upon me
as from a high building
and although I cannot speak of them
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the...Read more of this...

Lullaby of an Infant Chief

by Sir Walter Scott
 hush thee, my babie, thy sire was a knight,
Thy mother a lady, both lovely and bright;
The woods and the glens, from the towers which we see,
They all are belonging, dear babie, to thee.
O ho ro, i ri ri, cadul gu lo,
O ho ro, i ri ri, cadul gu lo.

O fear not the bugle, though loudly it blows,
It calls but...Read more of this...

Sunset

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns...Read more of this...

Underneath (9)

by Jorie Graham
  Spring
Up, up you go, you must be introduced.

You must learn belonging to (no-one)

Drenched in the white veil (day)

The circle of minutes pushed gleaming onto your finger.

Gaps pocking the brightness where you try to see
in.

Missing: corners, fields,

completeness: holes growing in it where the eye looks hardest.

Below, his chest, a sacred weightless place

and the small weight of your open hand...Read more of this...

Work Gangs

by Carl Sandburg
 BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
 Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a...Read more of this...

Sylvias Death

by Anne Sexton
 for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia, 
with a dead box of stones and spoons, 
with two children, two meteors 
wandering loose in a tiny playroom, 
with your mouth into the sheet, 
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer, 
(Sylvia, Sylvia 
where did you go 
after you wrote me 
from Devonshire 
about rasing potatoes 
and keeping bees?) 
what did you stand...Read more of this...

Repetitions

by Carl Sandburg
 THEY are crying salt tears
Over the beautiful beloved body
Of Inez Milholland,
Because they are glad she lived,
Because she loved open-armed,
Throwing love for a cheap thing
Belonging to everybody—
Cheap as sunlight,
And morning air....Read more of this...

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