Famous Eulogy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Duino Elegies

by Rainer Maria Rilke
The First Elegy


Who if I cried out would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me 
suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed
I that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror which we still are just able to endure
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel...Read more of this...

An Abandoned Factory Detroit

by Philip Levine
 The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands, 
An iron authority against the snow, 
And this grey monument to common sense 
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands, 
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow 
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence. 

Beyond, through broken windows one can see 
Where the great presses paused between their...Read more of this...

Waverley

by Joyce Kilmer
 1814-1914

When, on a novel's newly printed page
We find a maudlin eulogy of sin,
And read of ways that harlots wander in,
And of sick souls that writhe in helpless rage;
Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage,
Taps on her desk and bids the class begin
To con the problems that have always been
Perplexed mankind's unhappy heritage;
Then in what robes of honor habited
The laureled wizard...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIII: I Wake

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I wake! delusive phantoms hence, away!
Tempt not the weakness of a lover's breast;
The softest breeze can shake the halcyon's nest,
And lightest clouds o'ercast the dawning ray!
'Twas but a vision! Now, the star of day
Peers, like a gem on Aetna's burning crest!
Wellcome, ye Hills, with golden vintage drest;
Sicilian forests brown, and vallies gay!
A mournful stranger, from the Lesbian Isle,
Not strange,...Read more of this...

Eulogy To A Hell Of A Dame

by Charles Bukowski
 some dogs who sleep ay night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coimng down you
wanted to explode out of 
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a 
rotten 
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than...Read more of this...

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