Famous Existences Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Existences poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous existences poems. These examples illustrate what a famous existences poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Owen, Wilfred
...wn,
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
O Life, Life, let me breathe, -- a dug-out rat!
Not worse than ours the existences rats lead --
Nosing along at night down some safe vat,
They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death,
Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
"I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone."
Shelley...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ter of my Father's Lodge
As much abasheth me!
Of Life? 'Twere odd I fear [a] thing
That comprehendeth me
In one or two existences --
As Deity decree --
Of Resurrection? Is the East
Afraid to trust the Morn
With her fastidious forehead?
As soon impeach my Crown!...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded, - ah! enough that once their lips could meet
In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone....Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...k with serene impartiality
The strife of things, and yet be comforted,
Knowing that by the chain causality
All separate existences are wed
Into one supreme whole, whose utterance
Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance
Of Life in most august omnipresence,
Through which the rational intellect would find
In passion its expression, and mere sense,
Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind,
And being joined with it in harmony
More mystical than that which binds the s...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...s of realms:
The days of peace and slumbrous calm are fled;
Those days, all innocent of scathing war,
When all the fair Existences of heaven
Carne open-eyed to guess what we would speak:---
That was before our brows were taught to frown,
Before our lips knew else but solemn sounds;
That was before we knew the winged thing,
Victory, might be lost, or might be won.
And be ye mindful that Hyperion,
Our brightest brother, still is undisgraced---
Hyperion, lo! his radiance is ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...elicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me.
You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!
You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expos...Read more of this...
by
Rumi, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad
...are comely! Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee? We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable. We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing
onward from moment to moment. Their onward rush is visible,
and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us! Our wind whereby we are m...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...he water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment
of
the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;
Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths—breathing
that
thick-breathing air, a...Read more of this...
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