Famous Below Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Love a Life can show Below

by Emily Dickinson
 The Love a Life can show Below
Is but a filament, I know,
Of that diviner thing
That faints upon the face of Noon --
And smites the Tinder in the Sun --
And hinders Gabriel's Wing --

'Tis this -- in Music -- hints and sways --
And far abroad on Summer days --
Distils uncertain pain --
'Tis this enamors in the East --
And tints the...Read more of this...

Make haste! soon must you quit this life below,

by Omar Khayyam
Make haste! soon must you quit this life below,
And pass the veil, and Allah's secrets know,
Make haste to take your pleasure while you may,
You wot not whence you come, nor whither go....Read more of this...

Not so the infinite Relations -- Below

by Emily Dickinson
 Not so the infinite Relations -- Below
Division is Adhesion's forfeit -- On High
Affliction but a Speculation -- And Woe
A Fallacy, a Figment, We knew --...Read more of this...

A November Night

by Sara Teasdale
 There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street --
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see,
The...Read more of this...

They Who Prepare my Evening Meal Below

by Henry David Thoreau
 They who prepare my evening meal below
Carelessly hit the kettle as they go
With tongs or shovel,
And ringing round and round,
Out of this hovel
It makes an eastern temple by the sound.
At first I thought a cow bell right at hand
Mid birches sounded o'er the open land,
Where I plucked flowers
Many years ago,
Spending midsummer hours
With such secure delight they hardly seemed to...Read more of this...

'Tis but a day we sojourn here below,

by Omar Khayyam
'Tis but a day we sojourn here below,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe,
And then, leaving life's riddles all unsolved,
And burdened with regrets, we have to go....Read more of this...

He fell among Thieves

by Sir Henry Newbolt
 ‘Ye have robb’d,’ said he, ‘ye have slaughter’d and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?’
‘Blood for our blood,’ they said.

He laugh’d: ‘If one may settle the score for five,
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any...Read more of this...

Who treads in passion's footsteps here below,

by Omar Khayyam
Who treads in passion's footsteps here below,
A helpless pauper will depart, I trow;
Remember who you are, and whence you come.
Consider what you do, and whither go....Read more of this...

If the heart knew life's secrets here below,

by Omar Khayyam
If the heart knew life's secrets here below,
At death 'twould know God's secrets too, I trow;
But, if you know naught here, while still yourself,
To-morrow, stripped of self, what can you know?...Read more of this...

Cocoon above! Cocoon below!

by Emily Dickinson
 Cocoon above! Cocoon below!
Stealthy Cocoon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?
An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!

An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a "Surrogate,"
The Universe to know!...Read more of this...

Feast Of Victory

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Priam's castle-walls had sunk,
Troy in dust and ashes lay,
And each Greek, with triumph drunk,
Richly laden with his prey,
Sat upon his ship's high prow,
On the Hellespontic strand,
Starting on his journey now,
Bound for Greece, his own fair land.
Raise the glad exulting shout!
Toward the land that gave them birth
Turn they now the ships about,
As they seek their native earth.

And in rows, all...Read more of this...

I never felt at Home -- Below

by Emily Dickinson
 I never felt at Home -- Below --
And in the Handsome Skies
I shall not feel at Home -- I know --
I don't like Paradise --

Because it's Sunday -- all the time --
And Recess -- never comes --
And Eden'll be so lonesome
Bright Wednesday Afternoons --

If God could make a visit --
Or ever took a Nap --
So not to see us...Read more of this...

Climbing

by Amy Lowell
 High up in the apple tree climbing I go,
With the sky above me, the earth below.
Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair
Which leads to the town I see shining up there.
Climbing, climbing, higher and higher,
The branches blow and I see a spire,
The gleam of a turret, the glint of a dome,
All sparkling and bright, like white sea...Read more of this...

The Burning of the Steamer City of Montreal

by William Topaz McGonagall
 A sad tale of the sea I will relate, which will your hearts appal
Concerning the burning of the steamship "City of Montreal,"
Which had on board two hundred and forty-nine souls in all,
But, alas! a fearful catastrophe did them befall. 

The steamer left New York on the 6th August with a general cargo,
Bound for Queenstown and Liverpool also;
And all went...Read more of this...

Anashuya And Vijaya

by William Butler Yeats
 A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden;
around that the forest. Anashuya, the young priestess, kneeling
within the temple.

Anashuya. Send peace on all the lands and flickering
corn. -
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other. - Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful. - And if he love another,
May...Read more of this...

Sunflower Sutra

by Allen Ginsberg
I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look for the sunset over the box house hills and cry.

Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by...Read more of this...

My fire gives forth no smoke-cloud here below,

by Omar Khayyam
My fire gives forth no smoke-cloud here below,
My stock-in-trade no profit here below,
And you, who call me tavern-haunter, know
There is indeed no tavern here below...Read more of this...

Dream Song 108: Sixteen below. Our care like stranded hulls

by John Berryman
 Sixteen below. Our care like stranded hulls
litter all day our little Avenues.
It was 28 below.
No one goes anywhere. Fabulous calls
to duty clank. Icy dungeons, though, 
have much to mention to you.

At Harvard & Yale must Pussy-cat be heard
in the dead of winter when we must be sad
and feel by the weather had.
Chrysanthemums crest, far way, in the Emperor's garden
and,...Read more of this...

Orinda To Lucasia Parting October 1661 At London

by Katherine Philips
 Adieu dear object of my Love's excess,
And with thee all my hopes of happiness,
With the same fervent and unchanged heart
Which did it's whole self once to thee impart,
(And which though fortune has so sorely bruis'd,
Would suffer more, to be from this excus'd)
I to resign thy dear Converse submit,
Since I can neither keep, nor merit it.
Thou hast too long to...Read more of this...

Here below, we are only the puppets with which the

by Omar Khayyam
Here below, we are only the puppets with which the
Wheel of Heaven is amused. This is a truth and not a
metaphor. We are in fact the playthings upon this human
checkerboard, which finally we leave to enter one
by one the coffin of annihilation....Read more of this...

Old Ironsides

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! 
Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 
That banner in the sky; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 
And burst the cannon's roar; -- 
The meteor of the ocean air 
Shall sweep the clouds no more. 
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 
Where knelt the...Read more of this...

World Below the Brine The

by Walt Whitman
 THE world below the brine; 
Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves, 
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings,
 and
 the pink turf, 
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light
 through
 the water, 
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment
 of
 the...Read more of this...

To Penshurst

by Ben Jonson
  II. — TO PENSHURST.                Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told ; Or stair, or courts ;  but stand'st an ancient pile, And these grudg'd at, art reverenced the while. Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air, Of wood, of water ;  therein thou art fair. Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport :...Read more of this...

Who is the man who here below has not committed

by Omar Khayyam
Who is the man who here below has not committed
sin; can you say? Had he not committed it, could he
have lived, can you tell? If, because I do evil, you
punish me for evil, what then is the difference between
you and me, can you say?
368...Read more of this...

Who has not found the Heaven -- below --

by Emily Dickinson
 Who has not found the Heaven -- below --
Will fail of it above --
For Angels rent the House next ours,
Wherever we remove --...Read more of this...

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