Famous Ends Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hanchen the Maid of the Mill

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Near the village of Udorf, on the banks of the Rhine,
There lived a miller and his family, once on a time;
And there yet stands the mill in a state of decay,
And concerning the miller and his family, attend to my lay. 

The miller and his family went to Church one Sunday morn,
Leaving behind their darling child, the youngest born,
In...Read more of this...

The Ballad of East and West

by Rudyard Kipling
 Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the...Read more of this...

Pi

by Wislawa Szymborska
 The admirable number pi: 
three point one four one. 
All the following digits are also just a start, 
five nine two because it never ends. 
It can't be grasped, six five three five , at a glance, 
eight nine, by calculation, 
seven nine, through imagination, 
or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison 
four six to...Read more of this...

Divided

by Jean Ingelow
.

An empty sky, a world of heather,
  Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom;
We two among them wading together,
  Shaking out honey, treading perfume.
Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
  Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
  Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.
Flusheth the rise with her purple...Read more of this...

A Commonplace Day

by Thomas Hardy
 The day is turning ghost, 
And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, 
 To join the anonymous host 
Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, 
 To one of like degree. 

 I part the fire-gnawed logs, 
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends 
 Upon the shining dogs; 
Further...Read more of this...

At Tower Peak

by Gary Snyder
At Tower Peak

 Every tan rolling meadow will turn into housing
 Freeways are clogged all day
 Academies packed with scholars writing papers
 City people lean and dark
 This land most real 
 As its western-tending golden slopes
 And bird-entangled central valley swamps
 Sea-lion, urchin coasts
 Southerly salmon-probes 
 Into the aromatic almost-Mexican hills
 Along a range of granite peaks
 The...Read more of this...

Dedication To M..

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Swing of the heart. O firmly hung, fastened on what
invisible branch. Who, who gave you the push,
that you swung with me into the leaves?
How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-staying
is the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, only
toward the forever-too-high, all at once the possible
nearness. Vicinities, then
from an irresistibly swung-up-to place
--already, once again, lost--the new...Read more of this...

Another

by Thomas Carew
 THIS little vault, this narrow room, 
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb; 
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear 
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here, 
For ever set to us: by Death 
Sent to enflame the World Beneath. 
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain 
More sweetness than shall spring again; 
A budding Star, that might have grown...Read more of this...

The Hollow Men

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.




 A penny for the Old Guy




 I


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes,...Read more of this...

Asparagus

by Marriott Edgar
 Mr. Ramsbottom went to the races, 
A thing as he'd ne'er done before,
And as luck always follers beginners, 
Won five pounds, no-less and no-more.

He felt himself suddenly tempted
To indulge in some reckless orgee, 
So he went to a caffy-a-teerer 
And had a dressed crab with his tea.

He were crunching the claws at the finish
And wondering what next he would...Read more of this...

Sonnet 17 - My poet thou canst touch on all the notes

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between his After and Before,
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour
From thence into their ears. God's will devotes
Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on...Read more of this...

Book Ends

by Tony Harrison
 I

Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead
we chew it slowly that last apple pie.

Shocked into sleeplessness you're scared of bed.
We never could talk much, and now don't try.

You're like book ends, the pair of you, she'd say,
Hog that grate, say nothing, sit, sleep, stare…

The 'scholar' me, you, worn out on poor pay,
only our silence made us seem a pair.

Not...Read more of this...

Manual System

by Carl Sandburg
 MARY has a thingamajig clamped on her ears
And sits all day taking plugs out and sticking plugs in.
Flashes and flashes—voices and voices calling for ears to pour words in
Faces at the ends of wires asking for other faces at the ends of other wires:
All day taking plugs out and sticking plugs in,
Mary has a thingamajig clamped on her ears....Read more of this...

The Months have ends -- the Years -- a knot

by Emily Dickinson
 The Months have ends -- the Years -- a knot --
No Power can untie
To stretch a little further
A Skein of Misery --

The Earth lays back these tired lives
In her mysterious Drawers --
Too tenderly, that any doubt
An ultimate Repose --

The manner of the Children --
Who weary of the Day --
Themself -- the noisy Plaything
They cannot put away --...Read more of this...

The Beggars Valentine

by Vachel Lindsay
 Kiss me and comfort my heart 
Maiden honest and fine. 
I am the pilgrim boy 
Lame, but hunting the shrine; 

Fleeing away from the sweets, 
Seeking the dust and rain, 
Sworn to the staff and road, 
Scorning pleasure and pain; 

Nevertheless my mouth 
Would rest like a bird an hour 
And find in your curls a nest 
And find...Read more of this...

The Prisoner

by Emily Brontë
 Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
Year after year in gloom and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars:
Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
And...Read more of this...

Centenarian's Story The

by Walt Whitman
 GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary; 
The hill-top is nigh—but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen;) 
Up the path you have follow’d me well, spite of your hundred and extra years; 
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done; 
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.

Rest, while I tell what the...Read more of this...

The Old

by Robert William Service
 Oh bear with me, for I am old
And count on fingers five
The years this pencil I may hold
And hope to be alive;
How sadly soon our dreaming ends!
How brief the sunset glow!
Be kindly to the old, my friends:
You'll miss them when they go. 

I've seen so many disappear
That I can scarce forget,
For death has made them doubly dear
And ripened my...Read more of this...

Wild Strawberries

by Robert Graves
 Strawberries that in gardens grow 
 Are plump and juicy fine, 
But sweeter far as wise men know 
 Spring from the woodland vine. 

No need for bowl or silver spoon, 
 Sugar or spice or cream, 
Has the wild berry plucked in June 
 Beside the trickling stream. 

One such to melt at the tongue's root, 
 Confounding...Read more of this...

Essential Beauty

by Philip Larkin
 In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer...Read more of this...

Stout Marches Lead To Certain Ends

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 STOUT marches lead to certain ends,
We seek no Holy Grail, my friends -
That dawn should find us every day
Some fraction farther on our way.

The dumb lands sleep from east to west,
They stretch and turn and take their rest.
The cock has crown in the steading-yard,
But priest and people slumber hard.

We two are early forth, and hear
The nations snoring far and...Read more of this...

To S. M. a young African Painter on seeing his Works

by Phillis Wheatley
To show the lab'ring bosom's deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight?
Still, wond'rous youth! each noble path pursue,
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view:
Still may the painter's and the poet's fire
To aid...Read more of this...

Where the Sidewalk Ends

by Shel Silverstein
 There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We...Read more of this...

The Place Where The Rainbow Ends

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
There's a fabulous story
Full of splendor and glory,
That Arabian legends transcends;
Of the wealth without measure,
The coffers of treasure,
At the place where the rainbow ends.
Oh, many have sought it,
And all would have bought it,
With the blood we so recklessly spend;
But none has uncovered,
The gold, nor discovered
The spot at the rainbow's end.
They have sought it in battle,
And e'en where the rattle
Of dice...Read more of this...

haunting the quark

by Rg Gregory
 (I)
if you can’t scientifically explain it
dawkins says it has no value – some hope
inside the mechanical framework of a guess
(as far as any fact can truly grope)
doubts roam – mere looking can’t attain it

twentieth-century science perceived that mess
the more you probed the inner – more the scope
for chaos (uncertainty) – no mind could drain it
tie it to a marriage...Read more of this...

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