Best Famous Pavement Poems

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

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• All Famous Pavement Poems

Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes | The Last Leaf I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town. But now he walks the streets, And looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, "They are gone." The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. My grandmamma has said— Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago— That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow; But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so *****! And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.

Written by Philip Larkin | Church Going Once i am sure there's nothing going on I step inside letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting seats and stone and little books; sprawlings of flowers cut For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense musty unignorable silence Brewed God knows how long. Hatless I take off My cylce-clips in awkward revrence Move forward run my hand around the font. From where i stand the roof looks almost new-- Cleaned or restored? someone would know: I don't. Mounting the lectern I peruse a few hectoring large-scale verses and pronouce Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book donate an Irish sixpence Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. Yet stop I did: in fact I often do And always end much at a loss like this Wondering what to look for; wondering too When churches fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show Their parchment plate and pyx in locked cases And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? Or after dark will dubious women come To make their children touvh a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort or other will go on In games in riddles seemingly at random; But superstition like belief must die And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass weedy pavement brambles butress sky. A shape less recognisable each week A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last the very last to seek This place for whta it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber randy for antique Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative Bored uninformed knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation--marriage and birth And death and thoughts of these--for which was built This special shell? For though I've no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth It pleases me to stand in silence here; A serious house on serious earth it is In whose blent air all our compulsions meet Are recognisd and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious And gravitating with it to this ground Which he once heard was proper to grow wise in If only that so many dead lie round. 1955

Written by Billy Collins | Man Listening To Disc This is not bad -- ambling along 44th Street with Sonny Rollins for company, his music flowing through the soft calipers of these earphones, as if he were right beside me on this clear day in March, the pavement sparkling with sunlight, pigeons fluttering off the curb, nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs. In fact, I would say my delight at being suffused with phrases from his saxophone -- some like honey, some like vinegar -- is surpassed only by my gratitude to Tommy Potter for taking the time to join us on this breezy afternoon with his most unwieldy bass and to the esteemed Arthur Taylor who is somehow managing to navigate this crowd with his cumbersome drums. And I bow deeply to Thelonious Monk for figuring out a way to motorize -- or whatever -- his huge piano so he could be with us today. This music is loud yet so confidential. I cannot help feeling even more like the center of the universe than usual as I walk along to a rapid little version of "The Way You Look Tonight," and all I can say to my fellow pedestrians, to the woman in the white sweater, the man in the tan raincoat and the heavy glasses, who mistake themselves for the center of the universe -- all I can say is watch your step, because the five of us, instruments and all, are about to angle over to the south side of the street and then, in our own tightly knit way, turn the corner at Sixth Avenue. And if any of you are curious about where this aggregation, this whole battery-powered crew, is headed, let us just say that the real center of the universe, the only true point of view, is full of hope that he, the hub of the cosmos with his hair blown sideways, will eventually make it all the way downtown.

Written by Walt Whitman | Faces 1 SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road—lo! such faces! Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality; The spiritual, prescient face—the always welcome, common, benevolent face, The face of the singing of music—the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad at the back-top; The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows—the shaved blanch’d faces of orthodox citizens; The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist’s face; The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome detested or despised face; The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children; The face of an amour, the face of veneration; The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock; The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face; A wild hawk, his wings clipp’d by the clipper; A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder. Sauntering the pavement, thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces, and faces, and faces: I see them, and complain not, and am content with all. 2 Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their own finale? This now is too lamentable a face for a man; Some abject louse, asking leave to be—cringing for it; Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. This face is a dog’s snout, sniffing for garbage; Snakes nest in that mouth—I hear the sibilant threat. This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea; Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go. This is a face of bitter herbs—this an emetic—they need no label; And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s-lard. This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry, Its veins down the neck distended, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites, Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails, The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well. This face is bitten by vermin and worms, And this is some murderer’s knife, with a half-pull’d scabbard. This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee; An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 3 Those then are really men—the bosses and tufts of the great round globe! Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas’d and cadaverous march? Well, you cannot trick me. I see your rounded, never-erased flow; I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. Splay and twist as you like—poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats; You’ll be unmuzzled, you certainly will. I saw the face of the most smear’d and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum; And I knew for my consolation what they knew not; I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement; And I shall look again in a score or two of ages, And I shall meet the real landlord, perfect and unharm’d, every inch as good as myself. 4 The Lord advances, and yet advances; Always the shadow in front—always the reach’d hand bringing up the laggards. Out of this face emerge banners and horses—O superb! I see what is coming; I see the high pioneer-caps—I see the staves of runners clearing the way, I hear victorious drums. This face is a life-boat; This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest; This face is flavor’d fruit, ready for eating; This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good. These faces bear testimony, slumbering or awake; They show their descent from the Master himself. Off the word I have spoken, I except not one—red, white, black, are all deific; In each house is the ovum—it comes forth after a thousand years. Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me; Tall and sufficient stand behind, and make signs to me; I read the promise, and patiently wait. This is a full-grown lily’s face, She speaks to the limber-hipp’d man near the garden pickets, Come here, she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, limber-hipp’d man, Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you, Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders. 5 The old face of the mother of many children! Whist! I am fully content. Lull’d and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wild-cherry, and the cat-brier under them. I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, I heard what the singers were singing so long, Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue, Behold a woman! She looks out from her quaker cap—her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky. She sits in an arm-chair, under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, The sun just shines on her old white head. Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel. The melodious character of the earth, The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does not wish to go, The justified mother of men.

Written by Charlotte Bronte | Frances SHE will not sleep, for fear of dreams, But, rising, quits her restless bed, And walks where some beclouded beams Of moonlight through the hall are shed. Obedient to the goad of grief, Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow, In varying motion seek relief From the Eumenides of woe. Wringing her hands, at intervals­ But long as mute as phantom dim­ She glides along the dusky walls, Under the black oak rafters, grim. The close air of the grated tower Stifles a heart that scarce can beat, And, though so late and lone the hour, Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet; And on the pavement, spread before The long front of the mansion grey, Her steps imprint the night-frost hoar, Which pale on grass and granite lay. Not long she stayed where misty moon And shimmering stars could on her look, But through the garden arch-way, soon Her strange and gloomy path she took. Some firs, coeval with the tower, Their straight black boughs stretched o'er her head, Unseen, beneath this sable bower, Rustled her dress and rapid tread. There was an alcove in that shade, Screening a rustic-seat and stand; Weary she sat her down and laid Her hot brow on her burning hand. To solitude and to the night, Some words she now, in murmurs, said; And, trickling through her fingers white, Some tears of misery she shed. ' God help me, in my grievous need, God help me, in my inward pain; Which cannot ask for pity's meed, Which has no license to complain; Which must be borne, yet who can bear, Hours long, days long, a constant weight­ The yoke of absolute despair, A suffering wholly desolate ? Who can for ever crush the heart, Restrain its throbbing, curb its life ? Dissemble truth with ceaseless art, With outward calm, mask inward strife ?' She waited­as for some reply; The still and cloudy night gave none; Erelong, with deep-drawn, trembling sigh, Her heavy plaint again begun. ' Unloved­I love; unwept­I weep; Grief I restrain­hope I repress: Vain is this anguish­fixed and deep; Vainer, desires and dreams of bliss. My love awakes no love again, My tears collect, and fall unfelt; My sorrow touches none with pain, My humble hopes to nothing melt. For me the universe is dumb, Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind; Life I must bound, existence sum In the strait limits of one mind; That mind my own. Oh ! narrow cell; Dark­imageless­a living tomb ! There must I sleep, there wake and dwell Content, with palsy, pain, and gloom.' Again she paused; a moan of pain, A stifled sob, alone was heard; Long silence followed­then again, Her voice the stagnant midnight stirred. ' Must it be so ? Is this my fate ? Can I nor struggle, nor contend ? And am I doomed for years to wait, Watching death's lingering axe descend ? And when it falls, and when I die, What follows ? Vacant nothingness ? The blank of lost identity ? Erasure both of pain and bliss ? I've heard of heaven­I would believe; For if this earth indeed be all, Who longest lives may deepest grieve, Most blest, whom sorrows soonest call. Oh ! leaving disappointment here, Will man find hope on yonder coast ? Hope, which, on earth, shines never clear, And oft in clouds is wholly lost. Will he hope's source of light behold, Fruition's spring, where doubts expire, And drink, in waves of living gold, Contentment, full, for long desire ? Will he find bliss, which here he dreamed ? Rest, which was weariness on earth ? Knowledge, which, if o'er life it beamed, Served but to prove it void of worth ? Will he find love without lust's leaven, Love fearless, tearless, perfect, pure, To all with equal bounty given, In all, unfeigned, unfailing, sure ? Will he, from penal sufferings free, Released from shroud and wormy clod, All calm and glorious, rise and see Creation's Sire­Existence' God ? Then, glancing back on Time's brief woes, Will he behold them, fading, fly; Swept from Eternity's repose, Like sullying cloud, from pure blue sky ? If so­endure, my weary frame; And when thy anguish strikes too deep, And when all troubled burns life's flame, Think of the quiet, final sleep; Think of the glorious waking-hour, Which will not dawn on grief and tears, But on a ransomed spirit's power, Certain, and free from mortal fears. Seek now thy couch, and lie till morn, Then from thy chamber, calm, descend, With mind nor tossed, nor anguish-torn, But tranquil, fixed, to wait the end. And when thy opening eyes shall see Mementos, on the chamber wall, Of one who has forgotten thee, Shed not the tear of acrid gall. The tear which, welling from the heart, Burns where its drop corrosive falls, And makes each nerve, in torture, start, At feelings it too well recalls: When the sweet hope of being loved, Threw Eden sunshine on life's way; When every sense and feeling proved Expectancy of brightest day. When the hand trembled to receive A thrilling clasp, which seemed so near, And the heart ventured to believe, Another heart esteemed it dear. When words, half love, all tenderness, Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken, When the long, sunny days of bliss, Only by moonlight nights were broken. Till drop by drop, the cup of joy Filled full, with purple light, was glowing, And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high, Still never dreamt the overflowing. It fell not with a sudden crashing, It poured not out like open sluice; No, sparkling still, and redly flashing, Drained, drop by drop, the generous juice. I saw it sink, and strove to taste it, My eager lips approached the brim; The movement only seemed to waste it, It sank to dregs, all harsh and dim. These I have drank, and they for ever Have poisoned life and love for me; A draught from Sodom's lake could never More fiery, salt, and bitter, be. Oh ! Love was all a thin illusion; Joy, but the desert's flying stream; And, glancing back on long delusion, My memory grasps a hollow dream. Yet, whence that wondrous change of feeling, I never knew, and cannot learn, Nor why my lover's eye, congealing, Grew cold, and clouded, proud, and stern. Nor wherefore, friendship's forms forgetting, He careless left, and cool withdrew; Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting, Nor even one glance of comfort threw. And neither word nor token sending, Of kindness, since the parting day, His course, for distant regions bending, Went, self-contained and calm, away. Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation, Which will not weaken, cannot die, Hasten thy work of desolation, And let my tortured spirit fly ! Vain as the passing gale, my crying; Though lightning-struck, I must live on; I know, at heart, there is no dying Of love, and ruined hope, alone. Still strong, and young, and warm with vigour, Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow, And many a storm of wildest rigour Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough. Rebellious now to blank inertion, My unused strength demands a task; Travel, and toil, and full exertion, Are the last, only boon I ask. Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming Of death, and dubious life to come ? I see a nearer beacon gleaming Over dejection's sea of gloom. The very wildness of my sorrow Tells me I yet have innate force; My track of life has been too narrow, Effort shall trace a broader course. The world is not in yonder tower, Earth is not prisoned in that room, 'Mid whose dark pannels, hour by hour, I've sat, the slave and prey of gloom. One feeling­turned to utter anguish, Is not my being's only aim; When, lorn and loveless, life will languish, But courage can revive the flame. He, when he left me, went a roving To sunny climes, beyond the sea; And I, the weight of woe removing, Am free and fetterless as he. New scenes, new language, skies less clouded, May once more wake the wish to live; Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded, New pictures to the mind may give. New forms and faces, passing ever, May hide the one I still retain, Defined, and fixed, and fading never, Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain. And we might meet­time may have changed him; Chance may reveal the mystery, The secret influence which estranged him; Love may restore him yet to me. False thought­false hope­in scorn be banished ! I am not loved­nor loved have been; Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished, Traitors ! mislead me not again ! To words like yours I bid defiance, 'Tis such my mental wreck have made; Of God alone, and self-reliance, I ask for solace­hope for aid. Morn comes­and ere meridian glory O'er these, my natal woods, shall smile, Both lonely wood and mansion hoary I'll leave behind, full many a mile.

Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning | From ‘The Soul's Travelling' God, God! With a child’s voice I cry, Weak, sad, confidingly— God, God! Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop As ours, o’er many a tear! Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, Two little tears suffice to cover all: Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer Expiring in the woods—that care for none Of those delightsome flowers they die upon. O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath We name our souls, self-spoilt!—by that strong passion Which paled Thee once with sighs,—by that strong death Which made Thee once unbreathing—from the wrack Themselves have called around them, call them back, Back to Thee in continuous aspiration! For here, O Lord, For here they travel vainly,—vainly pass From city-pavement to untrodden sward, Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass Cold with the earth’s last dew. Yea, very vain The greatest speed of all these souls of men Unless they travel upward to the throne Where sittest THOU, the satisfying ONE, With help for sins and holy perfectings For all requirements—while the archangel, raising Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing, Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.

Written by Henry Lawson | When Your Pants Begin to Go When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn't white, And you cannot sleep for thinking how you'll reach to-morrow night, You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care, And as yet be unacquainted with the Demon of Despair; For I rather think that nothing heaps the trouble on your mind Like the knowledge that your trousers badly need a patch behind. I have noticed when misfortune strikes the hero of the play, That his clothes are worn and tattered in a most unlikely way; And the gods applaud and cheer him while he whines and loafs around, And they never seem to notice that his pants are mostly sound; But, of course, he cannot help it, for our mirth would mock his care, If the ceiling of his trousers showed the patches of repair. You are none the less a hero if you elevate your chin When you feel the pavement wearing through the leather, sock, and skin; You are rather more heroic than are ordinary folk If you scorn to fish for pity under cover of a joke; You will face the doubtful glances of the people that you know; But -- of course, you're bound to face them when your pants begin to go. If, when flush, you took your pleasures -- failed to make a god of Pelf, Some will say that for your troubles you can only thank yourself -- Some will swear you'll die a beggar, but you only laugh at that, While your garments hand together and you wear a decent hat; You may laugh at their predictions while your soles are wearing low, But -- a man's an awful coward when his pants begin to go. Though the present and the future may be anything but bright, It is best to tell the fellows that you're getting on all right, And a man prefers to say it -- 'tis a manly lie to tell, For the folks may be persuaded that you're doing very well; But it's hard to be a hero, and it's hard to wear a grin, When your most important garment is in places very thin. Get some sympathy and comfort from the chum who knows you best, That your sorrows won't run over in the presence of the rest; There's a chum that you can go to when you feel inclined to whine, He'll declare your coat is tidy, and he'll say: `Just look at mine!' Though you may be patched all over he will say it doesn't show, And he'll swear it can't be noticed when your pants begin to go. Brother mine, and of misfortune! times are hard, but do not fret, Keep your courage up and struggle, and we'll laugh at these things yet, Though there is no corn in Egypt, surely Africa has some -- Keep your smile in working order for the better days to come! We shall often laugh together at the hard times that we know, And get measured by the tailor when our pants begin to go. ...... Now the lady of refinement, in the lap of comfort rocked, Chancing on these rugged verses, will pretend that she is shocked. Leave her to her smelling-bottle; 'tis the wealthy who decide That the world should hide its patches 'neath the cruel look of pride; And I think there's something noble, and I swear there's nothing low, In the pride of Human Nature when its pants begin to go.

Written by Audre Lorde | Making Love To Concrete An upright abutment in the mouth of the Willis Avenue bridge a beige Honda leaps the divider like a steel gazelle inescapable sleek leather boots on the pavement rat-a-tat-tat best intentions going down for the third time stuck in the particular You cannot make love to concrete if you care about being non-essential wrong or worn thin if you fear ever becoming diamonds or lard you cannot make love to concrete if you cannot pretend concrete needs your loving To make love to concrete you need an indelible feather white dresses before you are ten a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones and air raid drills in your nightmares no stars till you go to the country and one summer when you are twelve Con Edison pulls the plug on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht and there are sudden new lights in the sky stone chips that forget you need to become a light rope a hammer a repeatable bridge garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs and a hint of you caught up between my fingers the lesson of a wooden beam propped up on barrels across a mined terrain between forgiving too easily and never giving at all.

Written by Wendell Berry | In A Motel Parking Lot Thinking Of Dr. Williams I. The poem is important, but not more than the people whose survival it serves, one of the necessities, so they may speak what is true, and have the patience for beauty: the weighted grainfield, the shady street, the well-laid stone and the changing tree whose branches spread above. For want of songs and stories they have dug away the soil, paved over what is left, set up their perfunctory walls in tribute to no god, for the love of no man or woman, so that the good that was here cannot be called back except by long waiting, by great sorrows remembered and to come by invoking the thunderstones of the world, and the vivid air. II. The poem is important, as the want of it proves. It is the stewardship of its own possibility, the past remembering itself in the presence of the present, the power learned and handed down to see what is present and what is not: the pavement laid down and walked over regardlessly--by exiles, here only because they are passing. Oh, remember the oaks that were here, the leaves, purple and brown, falling, the nuthatches walking headfirst down the trunks, crying "onc! onc!" in the brightness as they are doing now in the cemetery across the street where the past and the dead keep each other. To remember, to hear and remember, is to stop and walk on again to a livelier, surer measure. It is dangerous to remember the past only for its own sake, dangerous to deliver a message you did not get.

Written by Robert Browning | De Gustibus--- I. Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees, (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. Hark, those two in the hazel coppice--- A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, Making love, say,--- The happier they! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon, With the bean-flowers' boon, And the blackbird's tune, And May, and June! II. What I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)--- In a sea-side house to the farther South, Where the baked cicala dies of drouth, And one sharp tree---'tis a cypress---stands, By the many hundred years red-rusted, Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, My sentinel to guard the sands To the water's edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break? While, in the house, for ever crumbles Some fragment of the frescoed walls, From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, And says there's news to-day---the king Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: ---She hopes they have not caught the felons. Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me--- (When fortune's malice Lost her---Calais)--- Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, ``Italy.'' Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be!