Famous Decays Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Decays poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous decays poems. These examples illustrate what a famous decays poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.
Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,
In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
How oft has the Benshee cried,
How oft has death untied
Bright links that Glory wove,
Sweet bonds entwined by Love.
Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth;
Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth;
Long may the fair and brave,
Sigh o'er the hero's grave.
We're fallen upon gloomy days!
Star after star decays.
Every bright name, that shed...Read more of this...
by
George Herbert
Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev'ry Corporation.
The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree,
He says, in things...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
An honest Tear
Is durabler than Bronze --
This Cenotaph
May each that dies --
Reared by itself --
No Deputy suffice --
Gratitude bears
When Obelisk decays...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.12ff
L. M.
The church is the garden of God.
Lord, 'tis a pleasant thing to stand
In gardens planted by thine hand;
Let me within thy courts be seen,
Like a young cedar, fresh and green.
There grow thy saints in faith and love,
Blest with thine influence from above;
Not Lebanon with all its trees
Yields such a comely sight as these.
The plants of grace shall...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
The Ghost of Miltiades came at night,
And he stood by the bed of the Benthamite,
And he said, in a voice, that thrill'd the frame,
"If ever the sound of Marathon's name
Hath fir'd they blood or flush'd thy brow,
Lover of Liberty, rise thee now!"
The Benthamite, yawning, left his bed --
Away to the Stock Exchange he sped,
And he found the Scrip of...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
He is stark mad, who ever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say,
I saw a flask of powder burn a day?
Ah, what...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LVII. L' ultimo, lasso! de' miei giorni allegri. HE REVERTS TO THEIR LAST MEETING. The last, alas! of my bright days and glad—Few have been mine in this brief life below—[Pg 285]Had come; I felt my heart as tepid snow,Presage, perchance, of days both dark and sad.As...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
HOPE provides wings to thought, and love to hope.
Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest,
And say, that as on high her figure changeth,
So, upon earth, my joy decays and grows.
And whisper in her ear with modest softness,
How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.
And oh ye thoughts, distrustfully inclined,
If ye are therefore by the loved...Read more of this...
by
Philip Freneau
Thus, some tall tree that long hath stood
The glory of its native wood,
By storms destroyed, or length of years,
Demands the tribute of our tears.
The pile, that took long time to raise,
To dust returns by slow decays:
But, when its destined years are o'er,
We must regret the loss the more.
So long accustomed to...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays.
'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust --
Ruin is formal -- Devil's work
Consecutive and slow --
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping -- is Crash's law....Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.7-13,18-21
C. M.
Deliverance from slander and reproach.
My heart rejoices in thy name,
My God, my help, my trust;
Thou hast preserved my face from shame,
Mine honor from the dust.
"My life is spent with grief," I cried,
"My years consumed in groans,
My strength decays, mine eyes are dried,
And sorrow wastes my bones."
Among mine enemies my name
Was a mere proverb grown,
While to my neighbors...Read more of this...
by
Henry Vaughan
How rich, O Lord! how fresh thy visits are!
'Twas but just now my bleak leaves hopeless hung
Sullied with dust and mud;
Each snarling blast shot through me, and did share
Their youth, and beauty, cold showers nipt, and wrung
Their spiciness and blood;
But since thou didst in one sweet glance survey
Their sad decays, I flourish,...Read more of this...
by
Henry Vaughan
1 They are all gone into the world of light!
2 And I alone sit ling'ring here;
3 Their very memory is fair and bright,
4 And my sad thoughts doth clear.
5 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
6 Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
7 Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
8 After the sun's remove.
9 I see...Read more of this...
by
George (Lord) Byron
The roses of Love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in Love's last adieu!
In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or Death disunite...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Charle! ô mon fils!")
{March, 1871.}
Charles, Charles, my son! hast thou, then, quitted me?
Must all fade, naught endure?
Hast vanished in that radiance, clear for thee,
But still for us obscure?
My sunset lingers, boy, thy morn declines!
Sweet mutual love we've known;
For man, alas! plans,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Graves
An ancient saga tells us how
In the beginning the First Cow
(For nothing living yet had birth
But Elemental Cow on earth)
Began to lick cold stones and mud:
Under her warm tongue flesh and blood
Blossomed, a miracle to believe:
And so was Adam born, and Eve.
Here now is chaos once again,
Primeval mud, cold stones and rain.
Here...Read more of this...
by
Charlotte Bronte
ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we've set ourselves !
How still the lonely room appears !
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures;
These volumes, clasped with costly stone,
With print all faded, gilding gone;
These fans of leaves, from Indian trees
These...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Oh! vous aurez trop dit.")
{Bk. III. xiv., April, 1843.}
Ah, you said too often to your angel
There are other angels in the sky—
There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,
Sweet it were to enter in on high.
To that dome on marvellous pilasters,
To that tent roofed o'er...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.9-13
C. M.
Sick-bed devotion.
God of my life, look gently down,
Behold the pains I feel;
But I am dumb before thy throne,
Nor dare dispute thy will.
Diseases are thy servants, Lord,
They come at thy command;
I'll not attempt a murm'ring word
Against thy chast'ning hand.
Yet I may plead with humble cries,
Remove thy sharp rebukes;
My strength consumes, my spirit dies,
Through thy repeated strokes.
Crushed as a...Read more of this...
by
Henry Vaughan
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit ling'ring here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.
I see them walking...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
We were all one heart and one race
When the Abbey trumpets blew.
For a moment's breathing-space
We had forgotten you.
Now you return to your honoured place
Panting to shame us anew.
We have walked with the Ages dead--
With our Past alive and ablaze.
And you bid us pawn our honour for bread,
This day of all...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
At last, my old inveterate foe,
No opposition shalt thou know.
Since I by struggling, can obtain
Nothing, but encrease of pain,
I will att last, no more do soe,
Tho' I confesse, I have apply'd
Sweet mirth, and musick, and have try'd
A thousand other arts beside,
To drive thee from my darken'd breast,
Thou, who hast banish'd all my rest.
But, though sometimes, a short repreive...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where,...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
The conflict duty claims--the giant task;--
Thy spells, O virtue, never can assuage
The heart's wild fire--this offering do not ask
True, I have sworn--a solemn vow have sworn,
That I myself will curb the self within;
Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn--
Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.
Rent be...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Decays poems.