Famous Brother Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV To Richard Boyle

by Alexander Pope
 Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se 
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: 
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe jocoso, 
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetae, 
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
(Horace, Satires, I, x, 17-22)
'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ 
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the prodigal should...Read more of this...

Brother And Sister

by Lewis Carroll
 "SISTER, sister, go to bed! 
Go and rest your weary head." 
Thus the prudent brother said. 

"Do you want a battered hide, 
Or scratches to your face applied?" 
Thus his sister calm replied. 

"Sister, do not raise my wrath. 
I'd make you into mutton broth 
As easily as kill a moth" 

The sister raised her beaming eye 
And looked...Read more of this...

To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Ladys Brother and Sister

by Phillis Wheatley
 On Death's domain intent I fix my eyes,
Where human nature in vast ruin lies,
With pensive mind I search the drear abode,
Where the great conqu'ror has his spoils bestow'd;
There there the offspring of six thousand years
In endless numbers to my view appears:
Whole kingdoms in his gloomy den are thrust,
And nations mix with their primeval dust:
Insatiate still he gluts the ample...Read more of this...

A Country Life:to His Brother Mr Thomas Herrick

by Robert Herrick
 Thrice, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow;
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity;
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent;
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name;
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less...Read more of this...

To My Brother George

by John Keats
 Many the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kissed away the tears
That filled the eyes of Morn;—the laurelled peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;— 
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what...Read more of this...

An Ode To My Jailed Friend

by Godfrey Mutiso Gorry
 Unmasked –
The spirits' face is a black hole
Swallowing the celestial beauty
Of the stars.

Caged –
The sentinel is crouched
Subsumed in seething pain
Not pain but anger of being guiltless
Yet ‘guilty’ for being in jail.

The cell –
No crime equals its greasy grey walls
Thickly dark with no grills for light
Till the eyes, sore, feel pain no more.

The sentinel –
Was once a brother
Used to sit...Read more of this...

Brother Jonathans Lament

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 SHE has gone,-- she has left us in passion and pride,--
Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!
She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow,
And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
We can never forget that our hearts have been one,--
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name,
From the fountain...Read more of this...

The Hero

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Mother, let us imagine we are travelling, and passing through a
strange and dangerous country.
You are riding in a palanquin and I am trotting by you on a
red horse.
It is evening and the sun goes down. The waste of Joradighi
lies wan and grey before us. The land is desolate and barren.
You are frightened and thinking-"I know not where we have...Read more of this...

Misapprehension

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Out of my heart, one day, I wrote a song,
With my heart's blood imbued,
Instinct with passion, tremulously strong,
With grief subdued;
Breathing a fortitude
Pain-bought.
And one who claimed much love for what I wrought,
Read and considered it,
And spoke:
"Ay, brother,—'t is well writ,
But where's the joke?"
...Read more of this...

To My Brother Miguel In Memoriam

by Cesar Vallejo
 Brother, today I sit on the brick bench of the house,
where you make a bottomless emptiness.
I remember we used to play at this hour, and mama
caressed us: "But, sons..."

Now I go hide
as before, from all evening
lectures, and I trust you not to give me away.
Through the parlor, the vestibule, the corridors.
Later, you hide, and I do not give you...Read more of this...

Epistle To My Brother George

by John Keats
 Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should...Read more of this...

Little Brother

by Robert William Service
 Wars have been and wars will be
Till the human race is run;
Battles red by land and sea,
Never peace beneath the sun.
I am old and little care;
I'll be cold, my lips be dumb:
Brother mine, beware, beware . . .
Evil looms the wrath to come.

Eastern skies are dark with strife,
Western lands are stark with fear;
Rumours of world-war are rife,
Armageddon draweth near.
If...Read more of this...

Cast off dull care, O melancholy brother!

by Omar Khayyam
Cast off dull care, O melancholy brother!
Woo the sweet daughter of the grape, no other;
The daughter is forbidden, it is true,
But she is nicer than her lawful mother!...Read more of this...

Brother of Ingots -- Ah Peru --

by Emily Dickinson
 Brother of Ingots -- Ah Peru --
Empty the Hearts that purchased you --

--

Sister of Ophir --
Ah, Peru --
Subtle the Sum
That purchase you --

--

Brother of Ophir
Bright Adieu,
Honor, the shortest route
To you....Read more of this...

States!

by Walt Whitman
 STATES! 
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? 
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms? 

Away! 
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held together. 

The old breath of life, ever new, 
Here! I pass it by contact...Read more of this...

The Gardener LXVIII: None Lives For Ever Brother

by Rabindranath Tagore
 None lives for ever, brother, and
nothing lasts for long. Keep that in
mind and rejoice.
Our life is not the one old burden,
our path is not the one long
journey.
One sole poet has not to sing one
aged song.
The flower fades and dies; but he
who wears the flower has not to
mourn for it for ever.
Brother, keep that in mind and 
rejoice.
There must come...Read more of this...

Brother Jim

by Robert William Service
 My brother Jim's a millionaire,
while I have scarce a penny;
His face is creased with lines of care,
While my mug hasn't any.
With inwardness his eyes are dim,
While mine laugh out in glee,
And though I ought to envy him,
I think he envies me.

He has a chateau, I a shack,
And humble I should be
To see his stately Cadillac
Beside my jalopy.
With chain of...Read more of this...

To My Brother

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Give me your hand, my brother, search my face; 
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame; 
For we have made an end of all things base. 
We are returning by the road we came. 

Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead, 
And I am in the field where men must fight. 
But in the...Read more of this...

56. Epistle to Davie A Brother Poet

by Robert Burns
 WHILE winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,
 An’ hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,
 In hamely, westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
 Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,
 That live sae bien an’ snug:
...Read more of this...

Brother and Sister

by D. H. Lawrence
 The shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path,
Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky, 
Draws towards the downward slope: some sorrow hath
Worn her down to the quick, so she faintly fares 
Along her foot-searched way without knowing why
She creeps persistent down the sky’s long stairs. 

Some day they see, though I have never seen, 
The dead moon...Read more of this...

To His Dying Brother Master William Herrick

by Robert Herrick
 Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,
But stay the time till we have bade good-night.
Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day.
Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
Till we have wept, kiss'd, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.
There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell
When...Read more of this...

Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation of the Christian

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of...Read more of this...

A Brother In Need

by Henrik Ibsen
 NOW, rallying once if ne'er again, 
With flag at half-mast flown, 
A people in dire need and strain 
Mans Tyra's bastion. 

Betrayed in danger's hour, betrayed 
Before the stress of strife! 
Was this the meaning that it had-- 
That clasp of hands at Axelstad 
Which gave the North new life? 

The words that seemed as if they rushed 
From...Read more of this...

Whate'er thou doest, never grieve thy brother,

by Omar Khayyam
Whate'er thou doest, never grieve thy brother,
Nor kindle fumes of wrath his peace to smother;
Dost thou desire to taste eternal bliss,
Vex thine own heart, but never vex another!...Read more of this...

Brother of All with Generous Hand

by Walt Whitman
 1
BROTHER of all, with generous hand, 
Of thee, pondering on thee, as o’er thy tomb, I and my Soul, 
A thought to launch in memory of thee, 
A burial verse for thee. 

What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?
What tablets, pictures, hang for thee, O millionaire? 
—The life thou lived’st we know not, 
But that thou walk’dst...Read more of this...

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