10 Best Famous Begat Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Begat poems. This is a select list of the best famous Begat poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Begat poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of begat poems.

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45 Mercy Street

by Anne Sexton
 In my dream, 
drilling into the marrow 
of my entire bone, 
my real dream, 
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill 
searching for a street sign -- 
namely MERCY STREET. 
Not there. 

I try the Back Bay. 
Not there. 
Not there. 
And yet I know the number. 
45 Mercy Street. 
I know the stained-glass window 
of the foyer, 
the three flights of the house 
with its parquet floors. 
I know the furniture and 
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, 
the servants. 
I know the cupboard of Spode 
the boat of ice, solid silver, 
where the butter sits in neat squares 
like strange giant's teeth 
on the big mahogany table. 
I know it well. 
Not there. 

Where did you go? 
45 Mercy Street, 
with great-grandmother 
kneeling in her whale-bone corset 
and praying gently but fiercely 
to the wash basin, 
at five A.M. 
at noon 
dozing in her wiggy rocker, 
grandfather taking a nap in the pantry, 
grandmother pushing the bell for the downstairs maid, 
and Nana rocking Mother with an oversized flower 
on her forehead to cover the curl 
of when she was good and when she was... 
And where she was begat 
and in a generation 
the third she will beget, 
me, 
with the stranger's seed blooming 
into the flower called Horrid. 

I walk in a yellow dress 
and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes, 
enough pills, my wallet, my keys, 
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five? 
I walk. I walk. 
I hold matches at street signs 
for it is dark, 
as dark as the leathery dead 
and I have lost my green Ford, 
my house in the suburbs, 
two little kids 
sucked up like pollen by the bee in me 
and a husband 
who has wiped off his eyes 
in order not to see my inside out 
and I am walking and looking 
and this is no dream 
just my oily life 
where the people are alibis 
and the street is unfindable for an 
entire lifetime. 

Pull the shades down -- 
I don't care! 
Bolt the door, mercy, 
erase the number, 
rip down the street sign, 
what can it matter, 
what can it matter to this cheapskate 
who wants to own the past 
that went out on a dead ship 
and left me only with paper? 

Not there. 

I open my pocketbook, 
as women do, 
and fish swim back and forth 
between the dollars and the lipstick. 
I pick them out, 
one by one 
and throw them at the street signs, 
and shoot my pocketbook 
into the Charles River. 
Next I pull the dream off 
and slam into the cement wall 
of the clumsy calendar 
I live in, 
my life, 
and its hauled up 
notebooks.

Lineage

by Ted Hughes
 In the beginning was Scream
Who begat Blood
Who begat Eye
Who begat Fear
Who begat Wing
Who begat Bone
Who begat Granite
Who begat Violet
Who begat Guitar
Who begat Sweat
Who begat Adam
Who begat Mary
Who begat God
Who begat Nothing
Who begat Never
Never Never Never

Who begat Crow

Screaming for Blood
Grubs, crusts

Anything

Trembling featherless elbows in the nest's filth

Modern Love L: Thus Piteously Love

by George Meredith
 Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!--
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

Modern Love: L

by George Meredith
 Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day.
Then each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life!--
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin line upon the shore!

Modern Love XII: Not Solely That the Future

by George Meredith
 Not solely that the Future she destroys, 
And the fair life which in the distance lies 
For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies: 
Nor that the passing hour's supporting joys 
Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat 
Distinction in old times, and still should breed 
Sweet Memory, and Hope,--earth's modest seed, 
And heaven's high-prompting: not that the world is flat 
Since that soft-luring creature I embraced, 
Among the children of Illusion went: 
Methinks with all this loss I were content, 
If the mad Past, on which my foot is based, 
Were firm, or might be blotted: but the whole 
Of life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay: 
And if I drink oblivion of a day, 
So shorten I the stature of my soul.

To the Same. (H. Goodyere)

by Ben Jonson
LXXXVI. ? TO THE SAME.  [TO SIR HENRY GOODYERE.]      When I would know thee, GOODYERE, my thought looks Upon thy well-made choice of friends, and books ; Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends In making thy friends books, and thy books friends : Now I must give thy life and deed, the voice Attending such a study, such a choice ; Where, though't be love that to praise doth move, It was a knowledge that begat that love.
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