Famous Day By Day Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Gardener XX: Day After Day He Comes

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Day after day he comes and goes
away.
Go, and give him a flower from my 
hair, my friend.
If he asks who was it that sent it, I
entreat you do not tell him my name--
for he only comes and goes away.
He sits on the dust under the tree.
Spread there a seat with flowers and
leaves, my friend.
His eyes are sad, and they...Read more of this...

The Sum

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy,—and that is life.
A little short-lived summer's morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day's sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,—and that is love.
A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears
Two folded hands, the failing breath,
And peace...Read more of this...

Sonnet 75: So are you to my thoughts as food to life

by William Shakespeare
 So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may...Read more of this...

The Old Man's Love

by Victor Hugo
 ("Dérision! que cet amour boiteux.") 
 
 {HERNANI, Act III.} 


 O mockery! that this halting love 
 That fills the heart so full of flame and transport, 
 Forgets the body while it fires the soul! 
 If but a youthful shepherd cross my path, 
 He singing on the way—I sadly musing, 
 He in his fields,...Read more of this...

Passing away saith the World

by Christina Rossetti
 Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Chances, beauty and youth, sapp'd day by day:
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for aye.
Then I answer'd: Yea.

Passing...Read more of this...

Languid And Sad And Slow From Day To Day

by William Lisle Bowles
 Languid, and sad, and slow, from day to day 
I journey on, yet pensive turn to view 
(Where the rich landscape gleams with softer hue) 
The streams and vales, and hills, that steal away. 
So fares it with the children of the earth: 
For when life's goodly prospect opens round, 
Their spirits beat to tread that fairy ground, 
Where...Read more of this...

Half-waking

by William Allingham
 I thought it was the little bed 
I slept in long ago; 
A straight white curtain at the head, 
And two smooth knobs below. 
I thought I saw the nursery fire, 
And in a chair well-known 
My mother sat, and did not tire 
With reading all alone. 
If I should make the slightest sound 
To show that I'm awake,...Read more of this...

Sympathy

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 Therefore I dare reveal my private woe, 
The secret blots of my imperfect heart, 
Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert, 
Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know, 
That even as I am, thou also art. 
Thou past heroic forms unmoved shalt go, 
To pause and bide with me, to whisper low: 
"Not I alone am...Read more of this...

Lord! make thy bounty's cup for me to flow,

by Omar Khayyam
Lord! make thy bounty's cup for me to flow,
And bread unbegged for day by day bestow;
Yea, with thy wine make me beside myself.
No more to feel the headache of my woe!...Read more of this...

The Little Dell

by William Allingham
 Doleful was the land, 
Dull on, every side, 
Neither soft n'or grand, 
Barren, bleak, and wide; 
Nothing look'd with love; 
All was dingy brown; 
The very skies above 
Seem'd to sulk and frown.

Plodding sick and sad, 
Weary day on day; 
Searching, never glad, 
Many a miry way; 
Poor existence lagg'd 
In this barren place; 
While the seasons dragg'd 
Slowly...Read more of this...

Death of the Bird

by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope
 For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.

Year after year a speck on the map, divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home.

And being home,...Read more of this...

Love Though for This

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 I

LOVE, though for this you riddle me with darts, 
And drag me at your chariot till I die,­
Oh, heavy prince! O, panderer of hearts!­
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,
Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool, and in no temple...Read more of this...

Heaven multiplies our sorrows day by day,

by Omar Khayyam
Heaven multiplies our sorrows day by day,
And grants no joys it does not take away;
If those unborn could know the ills we bear,
What think you, would they rather come or stay?...Read more of this...

142. Epistle to Major Logan

by Robert Burns
 HAIL, thairm-inspirin’, rattlin’ Willie!
Tho’ fortune’s road be rough an’ hilly
To every fiddling, rhyming billie,
 We never heed,
But take it like the unback’d filly,
 Proud o’ her speed.


When, idly goavin’, whiles we saunter,
Yirr! fancy barks, awa we canter,
Up hill, down brae, till some mischanter,
 Some black bog-hole,
Arrests us; then the scathe an’ banter
 We’re forced to thole.


Hale be your heart!...Read more of this...

Step by step, day by day

by Emile Verhaeren
Step by step, day by day, age has come and placed his hands upon the bare forehead of our love, and has looked upon it with his dimmer eyes.
And in the fair garden shrivelled by July, the flowers, the groves and the living leaves have let fall something of their fervid strength on to the pale pond and the gentle...Read more of this...

The Pipes At Lucknow

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Pipes of the misty moorlands,
Voice of the glens and hills;
The droning of the torrents,
The treble of the rills!
Not the braes of bloom and heather,
Nor the mountains dark with rain,
Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
Have heard your sweetest strain!

Dear to the Lowland reaper,
And plaided mountaineer, -
To the cottage and the castle
The Scottish pipes are dear; -
Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch
O'er...Read more of this...

Since Thou Hast Given Me This Good Hope O God

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 SINCE thou hast given me this good hope, O God,
That while my footsteps tread the flowery sod
And the great woods embower me, and white dawn
And purple even sweetly lead me on
From day to day, and night to night, O God,
My life shall no wise miss the light of love;
But ever climbing, climb above
Man's one poor star, man's supine lands,
Into...Read more of this...

Sonnet 01: Thou Art Not Lovelier Than Lilacs—No

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,
 Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
 Than small white single poppies,—I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
 I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
 Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,—with moonlight so.

Like...Read more of this...

Morning Song in the Jungle

by Rudyard Kipling
 One moment past our bodies cast
 No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
 And we run home again.
In morning-hush, each rock and bush
 Stands hard, and high, and raw:
Then give the Call: "Good rest to all
 That keep the Jungle Law!"

Now horn and pelt our peoples melt
 In covert to abide;
Now, crouched and still,...Read more of this...

Sonnet: Languid And Sad And Slow From Day To Day

by William Lisle Bowles
 Languid, and sad, and slow, from day to day
I journey on, yet pensive turn to view
(Where the rich landscape gleams with softer hue)
The streams and vales, and hills, that steal away.
So fares it with the children of the earth:
For when life's goodly prospect opens round,
Their spirits beat to tread that fairy ground,
Where every vale sounds to the pipe of...Read more of this...

Cloris it is not thy disdaine

by Sidney Godolphin
 CLORIS, it is not thy disdaine 
 Can ever cover with dispaire 
 Or in cold ashes hide that care 
Which I have fedd with soe long paine, 
I may perhaps myne eyes refraine 5 
And fruiteless wordes noe more impart, 
But yet still serve, still serve thee in my hearte. 

What though I spend my haplesse dayes 
...Read more of this...

A Voice from the Town

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I thought, in the days of the droving, 
Of steps I might hope to retrace, 
To be done with the bush and the roving 
And settle once more in my place. 
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking, 
In the long, lonely rides on the plain, 
I thought of the pleasure of taking 
The hand of a...Read more of this...

Divina Commedia

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Oft have I seen at some cathedral door 
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, 
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet 
.
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor 
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; 
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat; 
.
The loud vociferations of the street 
.
Become an undistinguishable roar. 
.
So, as I...Read more of this...

Four Riddles

by Lewis Carroll
 I 

There was an ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away. 

I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:
They pointed to a building gray and tall,
And hoarsely answered "Step inside, my lad,
And then you'll see it all." 


Yet what are all...Read more of this...

The Crowd At The Ball Game

by William Carlos (WCW) Williams
 The crowd at the ball game 
is moved uniformly 
by a spirit of uselessness 
which delights them— 

all the exciting detail 
of the chase 

and the escape, the error 
the flash of genius— 

all to no end save beauty 
the eternal— 

So in detail they, the crowd, 
are beautiful 

for this 
to be warned against 

saluted and defied— 
It...Read more of this...

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