Famous Endless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Letter

by Anthony Hecht
 I have been wondering
 What you are thinking about, and by now suppose
 It is certainly not me.
 But the crocus is up, and the lark, and the blundering
 Blood knows what it knows.
It talks to itself all night, like a sliding moonlit sea.

 Of course, it is talking of you.
 At dawn, where the ocean has netted its...Read more of this...

Montjuich

by Philip Levine
 "Hill of Jews," says one, 
named for a cemetery 
long gone."Hill of Jove," 
says another, and maybe 
Jove stalked here 
once or rests now 
where so many lie 
who felt God swell 
the earth and burn 
along the edges 
of their breath. 
Almost seventy years 
since a troop of cavalry 
jingled up the silent road, 
dismounted, and loaded 
their...Read more of this...

Rousseau

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Monument of our own age's shame,
On thy country casting endless blame,
Rousseau's grave, how dear thou art to me
Calm repose be to thy ashes blest!
In thy life thou vainly sought'st for rest,
But at length 'twas here obtained by thee!

When will ancient wounds be covered o'er?
Wise men died in heathen days of yore;
Now 'tis lighter--yet they die again.
Socrates was killed by...Read more of this...

Los Angeles 1954

by David St John
 It was in the old days,
When she used to hang out at a place
Called Club Zombie,
A black cabaret that the police liked
To raid now and then. As she
Stepped through the door, the light
Would hit her platinum hair,
And believe me, heads would turn. Maestro
Loved it; he'd have her by
The arm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private...Read more of this...

Psalm 61

by Isaac Watts
 v.1-6 
S. M.
Safety in God.

When, overwhelm'd with grief,
My heart within me dies,
Helpless, and far from all relief,
To heav'n I lift mine eyes.

O lead me to the rock
That's high above my head,
And make the covert of thy wings
My shelter and my shade.

Within thy presence, Lord,
For ever I'll abide;
Thou art the tower of my defence,
The refuge where I hide.

Thou givest me...Read more of this...

Foreign Missions in Battle Array

by Vachel Lindsay
 An endless line of splendor, 
These troops with heaven for home, 
With creeds they go from Scotland, 
With incense go from Rome. 
These, in the name of Jesus, 
Against the dark gods stand, 
They gird the earth with valor, 
They heed their King's command. 

Onward the line advances, 
Shaking the hills with power, 
Slaying the hidden demons, 
The lions...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXIV

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 253] SONNET XXIV. Gli occhi di ch' io parlai sì caldamente. HIS LYRE IS NOW ATTUNED ONLY TO WOE.  The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mould,So long the theme of my impassion'd lay,Charms which so stole me from myself away,That strange to other men the course...Read more of this...

Manuelzinho

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or...Read more of this...

Masses

by Carl Sandburg
 AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and
red crag and was amazed;
On the beach where the long push under the endless tide
maneuvers, I stood silent;
Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant
over the horizon's grass, I was full of thoughts.
Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers,
mothers lifting their children--these all I
touched, and...Read more of this...

The Wildy Ones

by Robert William Service
 The sheep are in the silver wood,
 The cows are in the broom;
The goats are in the wild mountain
 And won't be home by noon.

My mother sang that olden tune
 Most every night,
And to her newest she would croon
 By candle light;
While cuddling in the velvet gloom
 I'd dream of cows
That sought each dawn 'mid golden broom
 To gently...Read more of this...

Monody to the Memory of Chatterton

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Chill penury repress'd his noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY. 


IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven, 
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven ! 
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way 
To the bland regions of celestial day; 
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air 
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme...Read more of this...

Endless Time

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. 
There is none to count thy minutes. 

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. 
Thou knowest how to wait. 

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. 

We have no time to lose, 
and having no time we must scramble for a chance. 
We are...Read more of this...

Retirement

by William Cowper
 Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.

The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem, by Thy sweet bounty made,
For those who follow Thee.

There if Thy Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her...Read more of this...

I Look Into My Glass

by Thomas Hardy
 I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide....Read more of this...

Praise for the Fountain Opened

by William Cowper
 (Zecheriah, xiii.1)

There is a fountain fill'd with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there have I, as vile as he,
Wash'd all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransom'd church of God
Be saved, to sin no...Read more of this...

Maud Muller

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 Maud Muller on a summer's day 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague...Read more of this...

The 'don'ts' and 'zeros'

by Dimitris P Kraniotis
 The night
that strangled
the endless moments
I had wished
to live,
passed by
without my lighting up
the candle
I had longed
to warm up
all the “don’ts” and “zeros”....Read more of this...

The Glove

by Robert Browning
 (PETER RONSARD _loquitur_.)

``Heigho!'' yawned one day King Francis,
``Distance all value enhances!
``When a man's busy, why, leisure
``Strikes him as wonderful pleasure:
`` 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?
``Straightway he wants to be busy.
``Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm
``Caught thinking war the true pastime.
``Is there a reason in metre?
``Give us your speech, master Peter!''
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne'er...Read more of this...

The Maid Of The Mills Treachery

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [This Ballad is introduced in the Wanderjahre, 
in a tale called The Foolish Pilgrim.]

WHENCE comes our friend so hastily,

When scarce the Eastern sky is grey?
Hath he just ceased, though cold it be,

In yonder holy spot to pray?
The brook appears to hem his path,

Would he barefooted o'er it go?
Why curse his orisons in wrath,

Across those heights beclad with snow?

Alas! his...Read more of this...

Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last

by Michael Drayton
 Yet read at last the story of my woe, 
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, 
With my life's sorrow interlined so, 
Smok'd with my sighs and blotted with my tears, 
The sad memorials of my miseries, 
Penn'd in the grief of mine afflicted ghost, 
My life's complaint in doleful elegies, 
With so pure love as Time could never...Read more of this...

Adam

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 High above he stands, beside the many
saintly figures fronting the cathedral's
gothic tympanum, close by the window
called the rose, and looks astonished at his

own deification which placed him there.
Erect and proud he smiles, and quite enjoys
this feat of his survival, willed by choice.

As labourer in the fields he made his start
and through his efforts brought to full fruition
the garden God...Read more of this...

Night Thoughts

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 OH, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn,

Ye by whom the sea-toss'd sailor's lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heav'ns adorn,

But by gods and men are unrequited:
For ye love not,--ne'er have learnt to love!
Ceaselessly in endless dance ye move,
In the spacious sky your charms displaying,

What far travels ye have hasten'd through,
Since, within my loved one's arms delaying,

I've forgotten you and midnight...Read more of this...

The Day is Done

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THE DAY is done and the darkness 
Falls from the wings of Night  
As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight. 

I see the lights of the village 5 
Gleam through the rain and the mist  
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 
That my soul cannot resist: 

A feeling of sadness and...Read more of this...

Thoughts On Jesus Christs Descent Into Hell

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO HELL.

[THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal 
but faint representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen 
years old. It derives additional interest from the fact of its being 
the very earliest piece of his that is preserved. The few other 
pieces included by Goethe under the title of Religion and...Read more of this...

Sonnet CVII

by William Shakespeare
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most...Read more of this...

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