Famous Commemorate Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Invitation

by Thomas Blackburn
 Holding with shaking hands a letter from some
Official – high up he says in the Ministry,
I note that I am invited to Birmingham,
There pedagogues to address for a decent fee.
'We like to meet,' he goes on, 'men eminent
In the field of letters each year,' and that's well put,
Though I find his words not wholly relevant
To this red-eyed fellow whose...Read more of this...

Before the Throne of Beauty XXVI

by Kahlil Gibran
 One heavy day I ran away from the grim face of society and the dizzying clamor of the city and directed my weary step to the spacious alley. I pursued the beckoning course of the rivulet and the musical sounds of the birds until I reached a lonely spot where the flowing branches of the trees prevented the sun...Read more of this...

The Death of Lord and Lady Dalhousie

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last,
Which causes many people to feel a little downcast;
And both lie side by side in one grave,
But I hope God in His goodness their souls will save. 

And may He protect their children that are left behind,
And may they always food and raiment find;
And from the paths of virtue...Read more of this...

Rehearsal to Ourselves

by Emily Dickinson
 Rehearsal to Ourselves
Of a Withdrawn Delight --
Affords a Bliss like Murder --
Omnipotent -- Acute --

We will not drop the Dirk --
Because We love the Wound
The Dirk Commemorate -- Itself
Remind Us that we died....Read more of this...

The Road and the End

by Carl Sandburg
 I SHALL foot it
Down the roadway in the dusk,
Where shapes of hunger wander
And the fugitives of pain go by.
I shall foot it
In the silence of the morning,
See the night slur into dawn,
Hear the slow great winds arise
Where tall trees flank the way
And shoulder toward the sky.

The broken boulders by the road
Shall not commemorate my ruin.
Regret shall be the gravel...Read more of this...

Mothers Day Proclamation

by Julia Ward Howe
 Arise then...women of this day! 
Arise, all women who have hearts! 
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! 
Say firmly: 
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, 
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, 
For caresses and applause. 
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn 
All that we have...Read more of this...

One Last Poem For Richard

by Sandra Cisneros
December 24th and we’re through again.
This time for good I know because I didn’t
throw you out — and anyway we waved.
No shoes. No angry doors.
We folded clothes and went
our separate ways.
You left behind that flannel shirt
of yours I liked but remembered to take
your toothbrush. Where are you tonight?

Richard, it’s Christmas Eve again
and old ghosts come back home.
I’m sitting by the...Read more of this...

Death and Burial of Lord Tennyson

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Alas! England now mourns for her poet that's gone-
The late and the good Lord Tennyson.
I hope his soul has fled to heaven above,
Where there is everlasting joy and love. 

He was a man that didn't care for company,
Because company interfered with his study,
And confused the bright ideas in his brain,
And for that reason from company he liked to abstain....Read more of this...

The First Grenadier of France

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in a certain regiment of French Grenadiers,
A touching and beautiful custom was observed many years;
Which was meant to commemorate the heroism of a departed comrade,
And when the companies assembled for parade,
There was one name at roll call to which no answer was made 

It was that of the noble La Tour d'Auvergne,
The first Grenadier of France, heroic and...Read more of this...

If I should cease to bring a Rose

by Emily Dickinson
 If I should cease to bring a Rose
Upon a festal day,
'Twill be because beyond the Rose
I have been called away --

If I should cease to take the names
My buds commemorate --
'Twill be because Death's finger
Claps my murmuring lip!...Read more of this...

The Monument

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.
Then on the topmost cube is set 
a sort of fleur-de-lys of weathered wood,
long petals of board, pierced...Read more of this...

In Memory of M. B

by Anna Akhmatova
 Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.

Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute,...Read more of this...

Sonnet 37 - Pardon oh pardon that my soul should make

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,
Of all that strong divineness which I know
For thine and thee, an image only so
Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
It is that distant years which did not take
Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
Thy purity of...Read more of this...

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