Famous Elders Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Elders poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous elders poems. These examples illustrate what a famous elders poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Marilyn Hacker
An unwrapped icon, too potent to touch,
she freed my breasts from the camp Empire dress.
Now one of them's the shadow of a breast
with a lost object's half-life, with as much
life as an anecdotal photograph:
me, Kim and Iva, all stripped to the waist,
hiking near Russian River on June first
'79: Iva's five-and-a-half.
While she was almost twenty, wearing black
T-shirts in D.C., where...Read more of this...
by
Adelaide Crapsey
"Why do
You thus devise
Evil against her?" "For that
She is beautiful, delicate;
Therefore."...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
The red room with the giant bed
Where none but elders laid their head;
The little room where you and I
Did for awhile together lie
And, simple, suitor, I your hand
In decent marriage did demand;
The great day nursery, best of all,
With pictures pasted on the wall
And leaves upon the blind--
A pleasant room wherein...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The Elders of the Tribe were grouped
And squatted in the Council Cave;
They seemed to be extremely pooped,
And some were grim, but all were grave:
The subject of their big To-do
Was axe-man Chow, the son of Choo.
Then up spoke Tribal Wiseman Waw:
"Brothers, today I talk to grieve:
As an upholder of the Law
You know how deeply we believe
In Liberty, Fraternity,
And likewise Equality.
"A...Read more of this...
by
Du Fu
Thin soft green silk shoe Shine bright white cotton scarf Deep store for old elder Fetch use for my body Self look change without interest Friendship how still new Daolin talent not age Huiyuan virtue surpass man Rain pour dusk eaves bamboo Wind blow green well celery Heaven dark face picture Most feel moist dragon scale Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour,
When in the firelight steadily aglow,
Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow
Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower
That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat
As lovers to whom Time is whispering.
From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:
The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.
Well knew we that Life's greatest...Read more of this...
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
If two may read aright
These rhymes of old delight
And house and garden play,
You too, my cousins, and you only, may.
You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,
Were hunter, soldier, tar,
And all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,
And from the...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure."
And he answered, saying:
Pleasure is a freedom song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
I
Because the night was falling warm and still
Upon a golden day at April’s end,
I thought; I will go up the hill once more
To find the face of him that I have lost,
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long.
So down the road I went,...Read more of this...
by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
I
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
And I worked my way to the end, and I
Was the head of the "Flying Gang".
'Twas a chosen band that was kept at hand
In case of an urgent need;
Was it south or north, we were started forth
And away at our utmost speed.
If word reached town that a bridge was down,
The imperious summons...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
O THOU, who in the heavens does dwell,
Who, as it pleases best Thysel’,
Sends ane to heaven an’ ten to hell,
A’ for Thy glory,
And no for ony gude or ill
They’ve done afore Thee!
I bless and praise Thy matchless might,
When thousands Thou hast left in night,
That I am here afore Thy sight,
For gifts an’ grace
A burning and a...Read more of this...
by
C S Lewis
1
You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me
Some strange old lust for deeds.
As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior
The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet
Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning,
So to my soul grown old -
Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray,
Grown old with namy a hither-coming and hence-going -
Till...Read more of this...
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...
by
Eugene Field
When thou dost eat from off this plate,
I charge thee be thou temperate;
Unto thine elders at the board
Do thou sweet reverence accord;
And, though to dignity inclined,
Unto the serving-folk be kind;
Be ever mindful of the poor,
Nor turn them hungry from the door;
And unto God, for health and food
And all that in thy life is good,
Give thou thy heart in gratitude....Read more of this...
by
Bliss Carman
In Memory of John Keats
By the Aurelian Wall,
Where the long shadows of the centuries fall
From Caius Cestius' tomb,
A weary mortal seeking rest found room
For quiet burial,
Leaving among his friends
A book of lyrics.
Such untold amends
A traveller might make
In a strange country, bidden to partake
Before he farther wends;
Who slyly should bestow
The foreign reed-flute they had seen him blow
And finger cunningly,
On one...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
A new song to the Lamb that was slain.
Rev. 5:6-12
Behold the glories of the Lamb
Amidst his Father's throne;
Prepare new honors for his name,
And songs before unknown.
Let elders worship at his feet,
The church adore around,
With vials full of odors sweet,
And harps of sweeter sound.
Those are the prayers of the saints,
And these the hymns they raise,
Jesus is kind to our...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Philips
1
O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
O Heavens! what content is mine,
To see those trees which have appear'd
From the nativity of Time,
And which hall ages have rever'd,
To look to-day as fresh and green,
As when their beauties first were seen!
2
A cheerful wind does court them so,
And with such...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Since I left the city's heat
For this sylvan, cool retreat,
High upon the hill-side here
Where the air is clean and clear,
I have lost the urban ways.[Pg 264]
Mine are calm and tranquil days,
Sloping lawns of green are mine,
Clustered treasures of the vine;
Long forgotten plants I know,
Where the best wild berries grow,
Where the greens and grasses sprout,
When the elders blossom out.
Now...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Drunk or sober Uncle Jim
Played the boy;
Never glum or sour or grim,
Oozin' joy.
Most folks thought he was no good,
Blamin' him;
But where kiddies were, you could
Bank on Jim.
Sure he allus hated work,
Lovin' play.
"Jest a good fer nuthin' jerk,"
Lots would say.
Yet how the children fell for him,
Whooped with glee:
Guys so popular as Jim
Seldom...Read more of this...
by
William Strode
O sing a new song to the Lord,
Praise in the hight and deeper strayne;
Come beare your parts with one accord,
Which you in Heaven may sing againe.
Yee elders all, and all the crowd
That in white robes apparrell'd stands
Like Saints on earth, sing out aloud,
Think now the palmes are in your hands.
Yee living pipes, whose stormy layes
Have borrowed breath to praise...Read more of this...
by
Kahlil Gibran
And one of the elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil."
And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when...Read more of this...
by
Wallace Stevens
I
1 Just as my fingers on these keys
2 Make music, so the self-same sounds
3 On my spirit make a music, too.
4 Music is feeling, then, not sound;
5 And thus it is that what I feel,
6 Here in this room, desiring you,
7 Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
8 Is music. It is like the...Read more of this...
by
Derek Walcott
When sunset, a brass gong,
vibrate through Couva,
is then I see my soul, swiftly unsheathed,
like a white cattle bird growing more small
over the ocean of the evening canes,
and I sit quiet, waiting for it to return
like a hog-cattle blistered with mud,
because, for my spirit, India is too far.
And to that gong
sometimes bald clouds in saffron robes assemble
sacred to the evening,
sacred...Read more of this...
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