10 Best Famous Goodnight Poems

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

• All Famous Goodnight Poems

I think my dad is Dracula.
I know that sounds insane,
but listen for a moment and
allow me to explain.
We don’t live in a castle,
and we never sleep in caves.
But, still, there’s something weird
about the way my dad behaves.
I never see him go out
in the daytime when it’s light.
He sleeps all day till evening,
then he leaves the house at night.
He comes home in the morning
saying, “Man, I’m really dead!”
He kisses us goodnight, and then
by sunrise he’s in bed.
My mom heard my suspicion
and she said, “You’re not too swift.
Your father’s not a vampire.
He just works the graveyard shift.”

 --Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2009. All Rights Reserved.

 We played dolls in that house where Father staggered with the
Thanksgiving knife, where Mother wept at noon into her one ounce of
cottage cheese, praying for the strength not to
kill herself. We kneeled over the
rubber bodies, gave them baths
carefully, scrubbed their little
orange hands, wrapped them up tight,
said goodnight, never spoke of the
woman like a gaping wound
weeping on the stairs, the man like a stuck
buffalo, baffled, stunned, dragging
arrows in his side. As if we had made a
pact of silence and safety, we kneeled and
dressed those tiny torsos with their elegant
belly-buttons and minuscule holes
high on the buttock to pee through and all that
darkness in their open mouths, so that I
have not been able to forgive you for giving your
daughter away, letting her go at
eight as if you took Molly Ann or
Tiny Tears and held her head
under the water in the bathinette
until no bubbles rose, or threw her
dark rosy body on the fire that
burned in that house where you and I
barely survived, sister, where we
swore to be protectors.

 I. 

Moonlight silvers the tops of trees,
Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall
And through the evening fall,
Clearly, as if through enchanted seas,
Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away,
In another world and another day.
Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue,
Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old,
And the boughs of elms grow green and cold,
Our footsteps echo on gleaming stones,
The leaves are stirred to a jargon of muted tones.
This is the night we have kept, you say:
This is the moonlit night that will never die.
Through the grey streets our memories retain
Let us go back again. 

II. 

Mist goes up from the river to dim the stars,
The river is black and cold; so let us dance
To flare of horns, and clang of cymbals and drums;
And strew the glimmering floor with roses,
And remember, while the rich music yawns and closes,
With a luxury of pain, how silence comes.
Yes, we loved each other, long ago;
We moved like wind to a music's ebb and flow.
At a phrase from violins you closed your eyes,
And smiled, and let me lead you how young we were!
Your hair, upon that music, seemed to stir.
Let us return there, let us return, you and I;
Through changeless streets our memories retain
Let us go back again. 

 III. 

 Mist goes up from the rain steeped earth, and clings
Ghostly with lamplight among drenched maple trees.
We walk in silence and see how the lamplight flings
Fans of shadow upon it the music's mournful pleas
Die out behind us, the door is closed at last,
A net of silver silence is softly cast
Over our thought slowly we walk,
Quietly with delicious pause, we talk,
Of foolish trivial things; of life and death,
Time, and forgetfulness, and dust and truth;
Lilacs and youth.
You laugh, I hear the after taken breath,
You darken your eyes and turn away your head
At something I have said
Some intuition that flew too deep,
And struck a plageant chord.
Tonight, tonight you will remember it as you fall asleep,
Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight,
Goodnight! You say.
The leaves of the lilac dip and sway;
The purple spikes of bloom
Nod their sweetness upon us, lift again,
Your white face turns, I am cought with pain
And silence descends, and dripping of dew from eaves,
And jeweled points of leaves. 

IV. 

I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along the street
And try to remember you; slow drops patter;
Water upon the lilacs has made them sweet;
I brush them with my sleeve, the cool drops scatter;
And suddenly I laugh and stand and listen
As if another had laughed a gust
Rustles the leaves, the wet spikes glisten;
And it seems as though it were you who had shaken the bough,
And spilled the fragrance I pursue your face again,
It grows more vague and lovely, it eludes me now.
I remember that you are gone, and drown in pain.
Something there was I said to you I recall,
Something just as the music seemed to fall 
That made you laugh, and burns me still with pleasure.
What were those words the words like dripping fire?
I remember them now, and in sweet leisure
Rehearse the scene, more exquisite than before,
And you more beautiful, and I more wise.
Lilacs and spring, and night, and your clear eyes,
And you, in white, by the darkness of a door:
These things, like voices weaving to richest music,
Flow and fall in the cool night of my mind,
I pursue your ghost among green leaves that are ghostly,
I pursue you, but cannot find.
And suddenly, with a pang that is sweetest of all,
I become aware that I cannot remember you;
The ghost I knew
Has silently plunged in shadows, shadows that stream and fall.

V. 

Let us go in and dance once more
On the dream's glimmering floor,
Beneath the balcony festooned with roses.
Let us go in and dance once more.
The door behind us closes
Against an evening purple with stars and mist.
Let us go in and keep our tryst
With music and white roses, and spin around
In swirls of sound.
Do you forsee me, married and grown old?
And you, who smile about you at this room,
Is it foretold
That you must step from tumult into gloom,
Forget me, love another?
No, you are Cleopatra, fiercely young,
Laughing upon the topmost stair of night;
Roses upon the desert must be flung;
Above us, light by light,
Weaves the delirious darkness, petal fall,
And music breaks in waves on the pillared wall;
And you are Cleopatra, and do not care.
And so, in memory, you will always be
Young and foolish, a thing of dream and mist;
And so, perhaps when all is disillusioned,
And eternal spring returns once more,
Bringing a ghost of lovelier springs remembered,
You will remember me. 

VI. 

Yet when we meet we seem in silence to say,
Pretending serene forgetfulness of our youth,
"Do you remember but then why should you remember! 
Do you remember a certain day,
Or evening rather, spring evening long ago,
We talked of death, and love, and time, and truth,
And said such wise things, things that amused us so 
How foolish we were, who thought ourselves so wise!"
And then we laugh, with shadows in our eyes.

 Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough body under the pyjamas
locks to me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there
like that, before I came?

 Good Morning -- Midnight --
I'm coming Home --
Day -- got tired of Me --
How could I -- of Him?

Sunshine was a sweet place --
I liked to stay --
But Morn -- didn't want me -- now --
So -- Goodnight -- Day!

I can look -- can't I --
When the East is Red?
The Hills -- have a way -- then --
That puts the Heart -- abroad --

You -- are not so fair -- Midnight --
I chose -- Day --
But -- please take a little Girl --
He turned away!

 Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;
Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;
Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

Even from that delight memory treasures so,
Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow,
As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.

In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng,
The bride is catried to the bridegroom's chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song;
I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

 Panic in your face, you write questions
to ask him. When he arrives,
you are serene, your fear
unbetrayed. How unlike me you are.


After the dance,
I see your happiness; he holds
your hand. Though you barely speak,
your body pulses messages I can read


all too well. He kisses you goodnight,
his body moving toward yours, and yours
responding. I am frightened, guard my
tongue for fear my mother will pop out


of my mouth. "He is not shy," I say. You giggle,
a little girl again, but you tell me he
kissed you on the dance floor. "Once?"
I ask. "No, a lot."


We ride through rain-shining 1 a.m.
streets. I bite back words which long
to be said, knowing I must not shatter your
moment, fragile as a spun-glass bird,


you, the moment, poised on the edge of
flight, and I, on the ground, afraid.


Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Copyright © 1995

 Go to sleep—though of course you will not— 
to tideless waves thundering slantwise against 
strong embankments, rattle and swish of spray 
dashed thirty feet high, caught by the lake wind, 
scattered and strewn broadcast in over the steady 
car rails! Sleep, sleep! Gulls' cries in a wind-gust 
broken by the wind; calculating wings set above 
the field of waves breaking. 
Go to sleep to the lunge between foam-crests, 
refuse churned in the recoil. Food! Food! 
Offal! Offal! that holds them in the air, wave-white 
for the one purpose, feather upon feather, the wild 
chill in their eyes, the hoarseness in their voices— 
sleep, sleep . . . 
Gentlefooted crowds are treading out your lullaby. 
Their arms nudge, they brush shoulders, 
hitch this way then that, mass and surge at the crossings— 
lullaby, lullaby! The wild-fowl police whistles, 
the enraged roar of the traffic, machine shrieks: 
it is all to put you to sleep, 
to soften your limbs in relaxed postures, 
and that your head slip sidewise, and your hair loosen 
and fall over your eyes and over your mouth, 
brushing your lips wistfully that you may dream, 
sleep and dream— 

A black fungus springs out about the lonely church doors— 
sleep, sleep. The Night, coming down upon 
the wet boulevard, would start you awake with his 
message, to have in at your window. Pay no 
heed to him. He storms at your sill with 
cooings, with gesticulations, curses! 
You will not let him in. He would keep you from sleeping. 
He would have you sit under your desk lamp 
brooding, pondering; he would have you 
slide out the drawer, take up the ornamented dagger 
and handle it. It is late, it is nineteen-nineteen— 
go to sleep, his cries are a lullaby; 
his jabbering is a sleep-well-my-baby; he is 
a crackbrained messenger. 

The maid waking you in the morning 
when you are up and dressing, 
the rustle of your clothes as you raise them— 
it is the same tune. 
At table the cold, greeninsh, split grapefruit, its juice 
on the tongue, the clink of the spoon in 
your coffee, the toast odors say it over and over. 

The open street-door lets in the breath of 
the morning wind from over the lake. 
The bus coming to a halt grinds from its sullen brakes— 
lullaby, lullaby. The crackle of a newspaper, 
the movement of the troubled coat beside you— 
sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep . . . 
It is the sting of snow, the burning liquor of 
the moonlight, the rush of rain in the gutters packed 
with dead leaves: go to sleep, go to sleep. 
And the night passes—and never passes—

 My Babbles has a nasty knack
Of keeping monkeys on her back.
A great big black one comes and swings
Right on her sash or pinny strings.
It is a horrid thing and wild
And makes her such a naughty child.

She comes and stands beside my chair
With almost an offended air
And says:--"Oh, Father, why can't I?"
And stamps her foot and starts to cry--
I look at Mother in dismay...
What little girl is this, to-day?

She throws about her nicest toys
And makes a truly dreadful noise
Till Mother rises from her place
With quite a Sunday churchy face
And Babbles silently is led
Into the dark and her own bed.

Never a kiss or one Goodnight,
Never a glimpse of candle light.
Oh, how the monkey simply flies!
Oh, how poor Babbles calls and cries,
Runs from the room with might and main,
"Father dear, I am good again."

When she is sitting on my knee
Snuggled quite close and kissing me,
Babbles and I, we think the same--
Why, that the monkey never came
Only a terrible dream maybe...
What did she have for evening tea?

 I knew it the first of the summer, 
I knew it the same at the end, 
That you and your love were plighted, 
But couldn’t you be my friend? 
Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, 
Couldn’t we walk on the shore
With only a pleasant friendship
To bind us, and nothing more? 

There was not a word of folly
Spoken between us two, 
Though we lingered oft in the garden
Till the roses were wet with dew.
We touched on a thousand subjects –
The moon and the worlds above, -
And our talk was tinctured with science, 
And everything else, save love.

A wholly Platonic friendship
You said I had proven to you
Could bind a man and a woman
The whole long season through, 
With never a thought of flirting, 
Though both were in their youth, 
What would you have said, my lady, 
If you had known the truth! 

What would you have done, I wonder, 
Had I gone on my knees to you
And told you my passionate story, 
There in the dusk and the dew? 
My burning, burdensome story, 
Hidden and hushed so long –
My story of hopeless loving –
Say, would you have thought it wrong? 

But I fought with my heart and conquered, 
I hid my wound from sight; 
You were going away in the morning, 
And I said a calm goodnight.
But now when I sit in the twilight, 
Or when I walk by the sea
That friendship, quite Platonic, 
Comes surging over me.
And a passionate longing fills me
For the roses, the dusk, the dew; 
For the beautiful summer vanished, 
For the moonlight walks – and you.